


Beneath the Winter Snow

by Distractivate



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Olympics, Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brother-Sister Relationships, Exes, Exes to Lovers, Getting Back Together, Ice Skating, M/M, Mutual Pining, Olympics, Oral Sex, Siblings, Skating, Sports, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2020-12-15 21:47:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21025235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Distractivate/pseuds/Distractivate
Summary: David can’t keep from smiling at the look on his sister’s face, radiant and beaming through what is sure to be the best day of her life so far. Even if the man who is partially responsible for this day is a show-off. And insufferably smug. And unassumingly sexy. And unbearably gorgeous. And David hates him. Or he hates that he loves him. He’s never known for sure.David Rose, former figure skater turned coach wrestles with the realization that he still carries a torch for his ex-boyfriend, former hockey player Patrick Brewer, during the Olympic Winter Games. Spoiler alert, he's not the only one who isn't over it. A Schitt's Creek Winter Olympics AU.





	1. Torch

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [SCFrozenOver](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SCFrozenOver) collection. 

> **Prompt:**  
Hockey player Patrick meets figure skater David while training for/at the Olympics.
> 
> I hope the prompter is okay that I fudged the roles for the characters a bit. 
> 
> Title from [Winter Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkOKCWDJ4iA) by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson.

** _PROLOGUE_ **

David can’t keep from smiling at the look on his sister’s face, radiant and beaming through what is sure to be the best day of her life so far. Even if the man who is partially responsible for this day is a show-off. And insufferably smug. And unassumingly sexy. And unbearably gorgeous. And David hates him. Or he hates that he loves him. He’s never known for sure.

Alexis and her partner are panting and grinning at each other as one of his broad, blunt-fingered hands pulls her cheek to his lips. They laugh and shake their heads and throw their arms around each other and cover their mouths in disbelief, their celebration just as in-sync as the choreography that they’ve practiced and practiced and practiced and finally just performed. The score they are about to receive will be their personal best. There is nothing more they could have done. They link hands and lift them in the air, waving with their free hands as they skate in circles so they can soak in the screaming adoration and bow to every side of the packed arena.

From his place with the other coaches on the sidelines, David can hear snippets of the back and forth between Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir in the network commentators box:

“Leaders after the short program . . . pair has been unstoppable lately . . . back to back world championships . . . Grand Prix gold medals . . . Rose struggled in the singles competition . . . without a partner after Rachel Covington retired . . . lucky to have found each other . . . unstoppable chemistry on-ice and off . . . Olympic gold is theirs to lose.”

The camera angle displayed on the jumbotron follows the pair to the edge of the ice still waving, Alexis blowing kisses to the crowd, holding tight to her partner’s hand. Alexis’s sequined costume catches the lights, flashing above the chyron on the big LED screen with the Canadian flag and the names of this year’s figure skating pairs team to beat: Patrick Brewer/Alexis Rose.

** _ONE WEEK EARLIER_ **

_THURSDAY_

David should be sleeping. That’s what a normal person would do when their body thinks it’s ten o’clock at night, even if it is just past eleven in the morning local time. Instead he’s watching _Dawson’s Creek _reruns on the in-flight entertainment system and trying not to think about the weight of Patrick’s head asleep on his shoulder. Or the sound of Patrick’s deep rumbling breaths and unconscious murmurs. Or the smell of cedar and citrus that David recognizes from the shampoo he gave Patrick, shampoo that Patrick has apparently been buying for himself ever since. Which is something David really shouldn’t think too hard about.

Maybe he should try to sleep after all. He’s not sure what he’ll say if Patrick wakes up and David has to pretend like he is fine with something as intimate as Patrick taking a nap on his shoulder, when in reality David has done everything he can to establish professional boundaries since they broke up.

It hasn’t been easy. They see each other every day. Patrick and Alexis train for four hours a day, six hours a day in the last two months leading up to the Olympics. As Alexis’s coach, David is there for most of those hours. He is proud of himself for managing to be professional and polite and only occasionally passive aggressive toward Patrick after everything that happened. And things are mostly back to normal, or back to stasis anyway.

David does eventually drift off, so he’s not sure what happens when Patrick wakes up. David startles awake as the plane makes thudding contact with the runway to find Patrick and Alexis talking quietly about their plan of attack for the Short Program.

Everything on land for the rest of the day is a blur, the time change and the customs desk and the foreign languages and the hectic energy of the airport arrivals area a familiar but disorienting ordeal. They find themselves at last in the Administration Center in the Olympic Village, security check completed and awaiting credentials.

Badges in hand, David accompanies Patrick and Alexis to the Canadian athletes' quarters in the Olympic Village, helping Alexis carry her suitcases up to her room in the high-rise apartment building where all of Team Canada will be staying. It’s a big room with two double beds. Her roommate Stevie Budd, a singles skater who is known for being something of a wild-card, is already perched on the bed she chose, most of her things unpacked and scattered around it.

Alexis huffs as she eyes the double bed closer to the door.

“Looks like you get murdered first,” David mutters.

“Ugh, you were supposed to talk to her about this," Alexis says.

“You know I can hear you, right?” Stevie asks.

“Hey, how was your flight?” David asks, used to their bickering after years on the elite skating circuit together.

“It got me here.” She shrugs as she gets up. “Anyway I think I'll let you settle in. Are we still on for dinner?”

“We are on for dinner,” David nods.

He and Stevie have been best friends since she and Alexis competed in the junior ladies circuit together. Back then, David was a little less invested in Alexis winning than he is now as her coach, and he and Stevie bonded over mutual annoyance with the way Alexis seemed to always be mid-crisis. Thankfully she’s grown out of that since teaming up with Patrick. Not that Patrick had anything to do with it of course.

As if summoned by David's thoughts, Patrick returns from dropping off his own things in his room down the hall.

“Hey Stevie!” he says. David watches Patrick’s ridiculous double hand wave—something he no doubt picked up from his waving-and-bowing curtain call routine on the ice—and definitely doesn’t think about the way Patrick’s hands used to work together, warm and sure on David's most private skin.

Stevie elbows him on the way out and gives him one of her all-seeing looks that says _control your face. _David is trying. He’s really trying.

“So who are you rooming with?” Alexis asks Patrick, eyes flitting to David like she knows a secret. David glares at her and mouths _what? _before Patrick is far enough in the room to see it.

“I'm with Kenneth Tremblay,” Patrick says, visibly starstruck. David tries to keep his face blank, even though everyone at the Olympics knows who Kenneth Tremblay is. He seemed to come out of nowhere to win the Men’s Figure Skating gold at the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships the year before and has been undefeated ever since.

“Ooh, Ken,” Alexis says, biting her grin and shooting David a wide-eyed look of not-so-innocent innocence. “He’s a sweetheart. And he looks very good in that itty-bitty—”

“Ken!” David interrupts with mock delight. “Just when I thought it was impossible to find a twenty-something named Ken.”

“Oh I think he’s younger than twenty,” Alexis says.

“He’s twenty-three, actually,” Patrick replies. Which means Patrick looked up Ken’s age at some point. David scolds his brain, which should be too busy suffering from fatigue and jet lag to offer such unwelcome observations.

“I’ve only talked to him once or twice but he seems nice,” Patrick shrugs in that congenial way he has, like he’s just a nice hockey player from the prairies who stumbled into world-class figure skating by accident. Which fine, he is that, and it is nice. What is not nice, David thinks, is how fucking noisy Patrick’s face is now that David is attuned to it. David can hear loud and clear how nice Patrick thinks Ken might be when the palest pink flush blooms over cheeks that tighten ever so slightly to hold back a smile.

“Well I should go and get myself settled,” David says, because he’s not jealous at all. He’s just focused on his job, which is to help his sister win a gold medal.

“Are you meeting Stevie here for dinner?” Alexis asks.

“Um, unclear,” David says, glancing at non-existent notifications on his phone to give his eyes something to do besides study the tufts of Patrick’s hair that are still mussed from his toque. Someone not named David should get him a mirror. “I’m meeting with Ronnie at the skating center and I’m not sure how long that will take.”

“Do you—Are you taking the costumes?” Patrick asks.

“Um, yeah. Are they . . . they must be in your room?” David asks, looking around. They already talked about David keeping the costumes at his hotel. They are worth thousands of dollars and will be safer there than in the dorm-like setting of the Olympic Village.

“Yeah,” Patrick replies, but he doesn’t move to go and get them.

“Okay. I’ll, um, come get them then.” David looks to Alexis to see if she’ll jump in and save him time alone in a room with Patrick and Ken, but that’s not her style.

“Bye, David,” Alexis says with a wave that is somehow both limp and cheerful. David scratches the back of his head with his middle finger as he follows Patrick out the door.

Patrick’s room is identical to Alexis’s and thankfully lacking a Ken at the moment. Patrick hands David the garment bags, their fingers snagging each other under the loop of the hangers, and it’s fine. David’s heartbeat will slow back down before it kills him, probably.

“I’ll take good care of them,” David says lamely, feeling like he should say more but unsure what could possibly be left to say. It’s going to be a long two weeks.

“Thank you, David,” Patrick says quietly, in that slightly lower register that he employs when he is sincerely grateful, or nearly asleep, or seriously horny.

“Sure,” David says. He’s about to leave when Patrick takes a step towards him and oh. That feels very familiar, that little step into David’s personal space; David feels the jitter of adrenaline rush into his smallest capillaries.

“I want—” Patrick stares at the floor, a gray field of carpet tiles with a fine red stripe in each square section, each line in a different location on the tile so no two stripes line up exactly. Which is how David feels here too, like they were shifted just slightly out of alignment and can't find their way back. Patrick scrapes the white toe of his sneaker along one of the red stripes as though he can uncover the rest of his sentence.

“You want what?” David asks, not bothering to hide his annoyance. It’s not his job to worry about Patrick’s feelings. Except it is, damnit, because there’s a whole thing about skaters and emotions and mind games, and he needs Patrick’s head to be clear and focused. For Alexis. Whose feelings are David's job to worry about.

Patrick looks up and swallows, wide eyes full of too many thoughts for David to pick out any of them clearly.

“I don’t know,” Patrick says finally, digging his hands in his pockets.

“Okay. Well if you figure it out, you know how to find me,” David says. “See you at training.”

“See you at training,” he agrees.

\-----

“Okay, I think we have a plan,” Ronnie says, looking down at her notes as she stands up to go. “I’ll do my part to keep my guy in line, and you keep Alexis’s head in the game, and I think it’s theirs to lose.”

Ronnie is Patrick’s coach and the only other person in the world who knows that of the Rose/Brewer pair, Patrick is the one who is the most challenging. Most people assume it’s Alexis because she has a big personality. But Ronnie and David both know it’s Patrick who needs more direction on the ice and more handling off of it. It’s always amused David that most people think of Patrick as unflappable and sweet, but that’s just the surface. David noticed that right away. Underneath his brain is constantly calculating and reformulating. It's brilliant and ruthless and wide and scattered and David loves it. No, David loved it.

“It’s a good plan,” David agrees, standing up too.

He shows Ronnie out and closes the door, catching sight of the costume garment bags in the closet.

He unzips Patrick’s bag and runs his hand down the shirt, a Prussian blue spandex approximation of a button-up that tucks into a pair of black poly-blend trousers. David has helped with every single one of their costumes for their routines, some much more elaborate. But this one is his favorite. He still remembers the first time Patrick put it on, coming over to David’s apartment after training on the day it arrived.

_“What about like this?” Patrick asks, popping the collar._

_“Absolutely not,” David says._

_David’s fingers dip between Patrick’s neck and the fabric as he settles the collar back into place. His lips brush the hollow of Patrick’s neck, sucking softly enough that the marks will fade before anyone has a chance to see them. Patrick tastes like salt and ice, a mixture David craves even now that his tongue can collect it from Patrick whenever he wants. _

_The plackets of the shirt are thin and sewn together up to the last few buttons, exposing a tease of Patrick’s sternum. David’s fingers part the shirt enough for his tongue to sink into the shallow dip, and Patrick groans. _

_“This is not fair. I have an interview in an hour,” Patrick says._

_“I can work with that. When do you need to leave?” Patrick laughs and David smiles into his jaw, catching it with his teeth on his way back to Patrick's mouth. _

_“Twenty minutes,” Patrick says. “And it will take at least ten of them to get me out of this thing.”_

_He’s not wrong about that. Skating costumes are designed to stay on through the most perfectly executed quad lutz-triple toe loop combination. It takes some effort to remove them. _

_“I’ll see what I can do,” David says, his hands already on the series of clasps at the waist of the pants._

Standing in the hotel room staring at the costume three months later, David can still hear Patrick’s laughter as they peeled him out of the stretchy fabric. He can still feel Patrick’s hands in David’s hair as David took him in his mouth. He zips up the bag and fuck, this is going to be so much harder than he realized. 

David closes the closet and decides to leave early. He can walk around a bit before meeting Stevie. It's the Olympic Games, and Alexis has always dreamed of Olympic gold and David can actually help make that happen for her. If that means it happens for Patrick too, then fine. Maybe if Patrick wins they will—

No, nope. After his own skating career was stunted by injury, he never thought he'd be here at the Olympics. And now he is. So he's going to enjoy it and set down this torch he's been carrying for Patrick once and for all. And maybe when he does what he came here to do, it's time to find his own dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I wrote this on the most last-minute of whims so please forgive any typos and other mistakes due to hastiness.


	2. Oath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Pants for helping me find typos even after I offered to give them a break from beta-ing. Thanks to barelypink for help with skating jargon. And thanks to this-is-not-nothing for talking through some sticky middle plot points. Some of the best ideas in this chapter came from talking it through with them. Any mistakes remaining are all my own.

_TUESDAY_

Cool gusts of wind weave through the forest of aluminum flag poles in the plaza at the entrance to the Olympic Village, the symbols of all the represented nations snapping against their tethers. It’s not even noon and it already feels like a long day. It is David’s fifth morning here; he can’t even blame the jet lag anymore.

Patrick and Alexis walk towards him from Green Machine, a power foods vendor with some kind of vegetable protein smoothie all the athletes have been raving about. There is a long line; they’ve been gone awhile. They match each other’s steps as they walk, their bodies accustomed to working in tandem.

It’s easy enough to remember a time when Patrick moved in tandem with David too. A time he feels more sharply now than he has in the weeks since it ended. They’re fine now, mostly. Patrick is Alexis’s partner, David is Alexis’s coach, and they both want what’s best for her. So the last few days have been fine. Excruciatingly fine.

“Oh my god, David, we just met the Jamaican women’s bobsled team,” Alexis says, sipping through her straw to conceal her awestruck smile. He loves seeing her this way, flushed with genuine excitement.

“That’s cool. Did they say when they compete?” He looks at Patrick and doesn't hear her answer. The dappling of freckles covering Patrick’s wind-bitten cheeks is more pronounced after days in the mountain sun.

_Patrick has freckles. David fixates on the freckles like a target, something to latch on to in the sea of sensations as Patrick lets David lay him bare for the first time. Not many freckles though, and the few there are, concentrated together. A dusting across his nose and cheeks so faint you have to be in the right light to see them. Another scattering of freckles drapes the curves of his shoulders. And three or four darker freckles make a constellation on his left side at the base of his ribs. David covers one of those with his mouth, sucking until Patrick groans. _

_“Da-David.” Patrick stutters his name as David presses further into—_

Whoa. David has promised himself he’s not going there. The higher altitude seems to have thinned the air enough so that memories of Patrick keep fighting their way through. Patrick catches his eye and holds it, his gaze delicate, asking a question that David can’t bring himself to interpret.

“We should probably go or we’ll be late,” Patrick says, dropping David’s eye and looking across the plaza as though the small group of tourists taking selfies is the most interesting thing he’s seen today.

“Wouldn’t want that,” David agrees. Patrick’s gaze flicks back briefly, another question, but he shakes his head and starts walking towards the Skating Center where the figure skating competition will take place.

They enter gate B13, the athlete’s entrance, and walk up the ramp to the locker rooms. The monitors in the staging and dressing rooms show the ice where the small group of skaters who drew the earlier practice time are warming up.

David will admit that Patrick’s need for structure has been a huge benefit to Alexis’s skating. She goes from summarizing _Cool Runnings _for Patrick—who inexplicably hasn’t seen it—to quiet and focused the second they step into the venue. While David and Ronnie lay out the goals for the day, Patrick and Alexis settle right into their routine, going through a practiced sequence of stretches, light jogging, and warmups in their regular shoes before switching to skates.

When their practice group is called, they make their way into the large oval arena. The first time they had practiced on Olympic ice, the pair had stood at the center, gazing upward. The lowest ring of commentator and press boxes is surrounded by rows and rows of green stadium seats stepping up until they meet the wide arc of the roof far above them. Patrick and Alexis do the same thing today, gliding out towards the middle of the ice and circling, visualizing. It’s not part of their normal routine, but it’s the way they start every session here. David stands and looks up for a minute too, but just a minute. Being in the venue is overwhelming for David, not knowing if what is coming is heartache or triumph.

The short program is tomorrow, so they won’t do a long training session today. Now it’s just about staying loose and in sync. They skate around to get the feel of the ice, matching strides. Patrick and Alexis are on the far side of the ice now, marking their way through a long footwork sequence. When they reach the end, Ronnie gives them a thumbs up and circles her hand in the air to suggest they try it one more time.

Between passes, David studies a skater from Norway working on spins. If Patrick happens to be skating towards the other end of the rink in the same field of view, well that’s not David’s fault. Even skating away, David can pick out Patrick across a packed skating rink the way he can spot a Neil Barrett sweater on a busy New York street. Patrick has a way of moving on the ice that David used to find equal parts amusing and agonizing. Unless his arms are choreographed to do something else, they swing around awkwardly as he skates, like they miss having a hockey stick to hang on to.

When he was partnered with Rachel Covington, Patrick’s athleticism contrasted with her delicate artistry, and their choreographer exploited their contradictions. Alexis is bolder, with sharper lines, and has a similar athleticism to Patrick, which is to say neither of them seems particularly nimble. But together, they make a dynamic pair, strong and powerful. Patrick has to do a lot more work to match Alexis’s lines than he ever had to do with Rachel, when it was about contrasts instead of mirroring. He’s come a long way.

_“Your extremities are the bane of my existence!” David cries, throwing up his hands and skating backwards._

_“You’re the one that offered to help,” Patrick replies, crossing his arms. His long-sleeved fitted moisture-wicking shirt conforms to his biceps and it’s . . . Oh fuck. David is going to have to be careful here._

_“Who else was going to help you? Ronnie?”_

_“I know.” Patrick seems defeated, and David cannot with the sad frown and the hung head and the little drop of sweat running down the side of his neck that David very much would like to lick. Which would probably shock the hell out of Patrick, who thinks of David as his new partner’s coach if he thinks of him at all. “Ronnie says it’s fine. She says I’m doing the best I can. But I just keep watching the videos from practice, and I know I can do better.”_

_“Okay,” David says, pushing off his skates so he edges a little closer. “Let’s try a different approach. _ _The choreography doesn’t stop at your elbows or your wrists. Your hands have to be part of every move you make, even if they’re at your sides.”_

_David takes Patrick’s left hand and presses against the heel where it slopes into his wrist. Patrick’s hands are surprisingly soft, David notes, as he kneads into Patrick’s palm with his fingertips, trying to get it to relax and open. Patrick makes a strangled noise that causes David to freeze._

_“They have to be working, but relaxed. Does that make sense?” David presses on, fixating on Patrick’s dry cuticles so he doesn’t have to make eye contact._

_“I think so.”_

_“Okay. So the same goes for your whole arm. You’re trying to make it happen from your shoulder.” David looks briefly at Patrick as he shakes his arm. He is not prepared for Patrick’s face, eyes blown, mouth just slightly ajar. “Can I. Just. Um.”_

_“Yeah.” Patrick doesn’t wait for the question. He looks like he would say yes to anything David asked for. Which. Well. That’s new. Or maybe it’s not, really, thinking back. They’ve become friends in the last several weeks. And there have been times where it seemed like more. Maybe._

_“Okay. You’re starting the motions from here,” David cups the outside curve of Patrick’s shoulder, “when it really needs to start here, at your neck.” _

_David’s hand closes along the collar of Patrick’s shirt, his thumb just grazing the skin where his collarbone ends. Patrick’s body adjusts easily under every press of David’s hands. It's dizzying, the feel of Patrick moving under him this way. _

_“Okay so the whole thing would be like this?” Patrick asks, skating backwards so David can see the full movement, implementing David’s suggestions._

_“Yeah. Yeah just like that.” David is grateful to have a little space between them. He’s never been so hot on the ice._

_“Okay, so what else?” Patrick asks._

_“I think that’s probably enough to work on,” David says. He’s not sure how much more he can take, really._

_“Just give me one more thing,” Patrick insists. And why does it sound like he’s not talking at all about figure skating?_

_“Okay,” David tries to think of something that doesn’t involve contact. “Your mouth.”_

_“My mouth?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“What’s wrong with my mouth?”_

_“It’s sloppy.”_

_“Sloppy?” Patrick asks, his lips arcing down while his voice raises just a little, and talking about his mouth was obviously a terrible idea to cool things down._

_“Yes?” David replies, wavering. “Well not normally. Normally you have a nice, clean mouth. But when you skate, it’s sloppy.”_

_“Oh,” Patrick says. And David is really in trouble here because Patrick has located his inner little shit and is grinning at David like he has his number. Which really, at this point, he probably does. “And what makes it sloppy, exactly?”_

_“It kind of hangs when you skate, and then when you’re about to go into a lift or a spin or jump you sort of clench it.”_

_“I clench it?” Patrick’s grin is wide now, and he’s looking up at David and down at David all at the same time, and it’s frankly baffling why him looking like a bemused puppy should turn David on._

_“You—“ David tries to mimic the rigid jaw, “—clench it. And it makes whatever you’re doing look hard.”_

_“Oh we wouldn’t want it to look like I’m doing something hard,” Patrick says. And well, that’s not the point at all, but it feels very important nonetheless._

_“It should stay soft,” David persists, because he’s trying to help here. And that clearly wasn’t the right thing to say either, because Patrick is obviously not thinking about skating anymore._

_“I should stay soft.” Patrick doesn’t ask._

_“Your mouth. It’s kind of like your hands. Working but relaxed.”_

_“I think you should show me that too. So I can see the difference,” Patrick says, skating very close._

_David does his best to demonstrate, although he can feel his eyes widen as Patrick’s eyes lock on his mouth._

_“I don’t know, David,” Patrick says. “Your mouth still looks kind of sloppy to me.”_

_“I see you think you’re very funny,” David says, and Patrick is so very close that David can see the teasing in his eyes has been replaced by a desperate void, threatening to pull David in. “I, um, charge extra. For trainees who make jokes.”_

_“You said you were doing this as a friend. I didn’t realize I was paying you.”_

_“That’s . . . True. You're not.”_

_“So, friend. Anything else I should know about my mouth?” Patrick asks. The way he says friend is decidedly not friendly. Or rather, it's decidedly more than friendly._

_David grasps for his regular litany—Patrick is goal-oriented, Patrick doesn’t need a distraction, Patrick isn’t into him, Patrick is his sister’s partner—but he stalls out. Because Patrick is._

_David reaches up and touches Patrick’s lower lip softly where it’s just the slightest bit chapped. Patrick’s face goes serious, and it’s all the indication David needs that Patrick wants more than a testing brush of a fingertip. _

_David’s lips find Patrick’s, cold despite the heat bursting between them. His hands follow, tracing the same path they had a moment before, shoulders to neck. And just like before, Patrick’s body adjusts under them like clay. But that’s it, really, as far as similarities. Because this is more than a hitched breath or a pointed look. It’s a body fusing to his, lips growing warm and pliant, hands reaching to pull closer, closer, closer._

_It’s David’s thousandth kiss. It might as well be his first. Patrick draws David closer, but also out. Away from the safety of David’s own making, promising they are safer together. _

An empty promise, David reminds himself now, watching as they finish the footwork sequence.

“David, do you think we should do those two lifts before we're done?” Alexis asks when the reach the wall.

“Yeah. Yeah let’s do the lasso lift and the hand-to-hand loop lift,” David says. He can tell Patrick is staring at him, so he keeps his focus on his sister.

“Actually I think we should have them mark the whole thing once with music instead. No jumps but we can do all the lifts,” Ronnie says.

“Yeah. Okay. Don’t drop her,” David offers, wishing immediately he could take it back. He feels like he’s floundering barefoot on the ice today. So much for promising himself he keep errant Patrick-laden memories at bay.

“Good advice.” Patrick’s tone is gentle, like he can tell. He probably can. He always could before.

David hands them the Bluetooth headphones so they can hear the music on his phone.

After they finish and cool down, Ronnie leaves to catch a downhill event with Karen. David parks outside the changing rooms, checking the lineup for the next day on his phone while Patrick and Alexis collect their things.

“You ready to walk back?” Patrick asks.

“Oh, sure. Where’s Alexis?”

“She’s meeting up with someone, I guess. You know Twyla Sands, the short track skater?”

“Oh yeah.”

“I guess they hit it off or something. They’re going shopping.”

“Oh. I guess I will choose not to be offended that she didn’t think to ask me,” David huffs.

“Okay,” Patrick says, laughing. The laughter sounds foreign to David. It’s real laughter that rolls easily off his tongue. Has it really been that long since he’s heard Patrick laugh like that?

David has already agreed to the walk, so he can’t exactly get out of it. They gather their things and walk back, past the curling center, past the Olympic flame burning bright. David can see the heat radiating off of it.

They’re quiet. Too quiet. David has to find something, anything, to talk about.

“Having fun so far?” David asks, then winces. He’s trying to sound casual, which sounds like he’s trying to sound casual.

“Yeah. That Opening Ceremony was amazing. I’ve never been part of something like that. Like I get what they’re saying about Olympic moments, you know? How they’re something special.”

“Yeah. I—It was good.” David says. “I really liked the part with the Olympic Oath.”

“The Olympic Oath?” Patrick asks. “You mean where we promised to avoid doping and uphold the glory of sport?”

Patrick looks like he has a joke on the tip of his tongue, but David just shrugs, so Patrick has to swallow it. David doesn’t really know how to describe it really, the way it felt to be there in that space. He had known the athletes take an oath as part of the ceremony, but David hadn’t realized the coaches would take one too. He’s been looking at this whole experience as something he’s doing for his sister, but it’s not just about her, he realized. There’s something here for him, too. If he can make an oath to uphold the glory of sport of all things, maybe he can keep any promise he wants to make to himself. 

But all of that is very far outside the professional boundary he’s trying to shore up, and Patrick will ask follow-ups. Because he’s Patrick. So David searches for a different topic.

“How’s it going rooming with Ken?” David asks. Why? He has no fucking clue.

“Good,” Patrick says, and now he’s trying to sound casual, which sounds like he’s trying to sound casual.

“Cool. Great. Fun!” David says. His tongue has betrayed him. There is no other explanation.

“I’m having a hard time sleeping though,” Patrick says.

“Oh. Because . . . Because of Ken?” David knows when he bites the side of his lip it’s a tell, but he does it anyway.

“No,” Patrick says, and there’s another of those laughs. A real one. “He sleeps with this oxygen concentrator. It’s supposed to help his performance or something. I mean maybe it does, considering how well he’s done the last year. But it makes this humming and clicking sound all night.”

“Oh,” David says, pressing down as tight as he can on a smirk. “I seem to recall that you used to sleep through my white noise machine.”

Patrick’s step falters for a fraction of a second before he continues.

“Yeah. That was part of your whole thing though.” Patrick’s voice turns fond, and David realizes it’s been awhile since he’s heard that tone, too.

“My whole thing?”

“Yeah. Your whole David thing. Moisturizer and bed socks and the lavender oil thing and the pillows and blankets in the right place and the sound machine. It was cute. It was just very _David. _Just one of the many things I got the chance to like about you.”

David used to love the way Patrick could do that, wrap him in gentle, soothing words. He still loves it. But he doesn't trust it anymore.

“What are you doing?” David asks, stopping in his tracks.

“I don’t know, David. It’s been weird. I thought I’d try to make it less weird.”

“Talking about sleeping arrangements is supposed to make it less weird?”

“Yes? You brought it up.”

“And?” David asks.

“And what?”

“Did it work? Is it less weird now?”

_No it’s still really fucking weird, _Patrick’s face is shouting at him.

“For a few minutes there it was nice,” Patrick says instead. “David, I know you want to just keep things professional, and I’m trying. But I don’t know if I can keep pretending like this whole part of our lives didn’t happen.”

“You don’t have to pretend it didn’t happen,” David says. He reaches for Patrick’s shoulders, catches himself, and adjusts his own coat collar instead.

Patrick gives him another of those long looks and shakes his head, like he’s made his mind up about something.

“You say that, but I think you would prefer I did. Pretend. David, I said I was sorry a hundred times. I don’t know what else I have to say or do to get you to forgive me.”

“I have forgiven you,” David says. “I know you were doing what you thought was right. The problem, Patrick, is that it wasn’t right.”

“I know that. I know that now,” he says. He shoves his hands in his coat pockets and looks away, and David realizes there are tears floating at the edges of his eyes. Patrick clears his throat, but his voice is wet when he continues. “You know what, I think I’m going to go catch the rest of the hockey game.”

Patrick gestures vaguely towards one of the live-watch zones in the Olympic Village and heads off in that direction. It’s clear David is not invited.

It’s only then that David realizes where he is, surrounded by the flags in the plaza again. He just walked with Patrick for almost two kilometers in the opposite direction from his hotel.


	3. Citius, Altius, Fortius

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those taking notes on Olympics trivia, the chapter title is the motto for the Olympic Games. It is Latin for Faster, Higher, Stronger. Why is the motto Latin and not Greek, you ask? I have no idea. And I'm guessing that's not really what you're here for. 
> 
> Thanks to Pants for cheerleading and to barelypink for continued help with skating minutiae.

_WEDNESDAY_

David is an adult. David is a mature adult who handles adult situations maturely. This will be his new motto, which he repeats over and over walking down the hall to Patrick's room.

David hears them before he sees them. He recognizes Patrick's rolling laugh, the one that makes his shoulders shake. Ken's laugh is lighter, airy. The door to their room is open, which David’s brain would register as a positive sign if it wasn’t immediately confronted with Patrick and Ken in Ken’s bed.

It’s morning still. They are both wearing jeans and t-shirts and Patrick’s bed has the rumpled look of being recently slept in. Patrick is even wearing his awful white socks with the dirt-gray soles that indicate he’s been up and about. David’s brain produces the only logical conclusion: Patrick’s bed for sex, Ken’s for sleeping and cuddling. Because now they’re huddled close in Ken’s bed watching something on Ken’s laptop.

Motto forgotten, David takes too long to knock casually as though this isn’t his worst nightmare. Patrick catches him staring.

“David, hey,” Patrick says, handing Ken the half of the laptop that was resting on his thigh and getting up.

“Hey. Sorry to—um—interrupt.”

“We were just watching _Cool Runnings_,” Patrick says, walking over to where David has stopped in the doorway.

“Neither of us have seen it,” Ken offers, like he’s part of the conversation.

“Well considering it was made before you were born, that’s not surprising.” Apparently David is now a person who can burn you with math even when he’s frozen in place.

Patrick gives him a look that is supposed to be chastising but isn’t, considering a smile is crinkled around his eyes. “What brings you out before ten in the morning?”

“I’m—” David glances back at Ken. “Can we walk?”

“I can go,” Ken says, which makes David dislike him even more for being observant and reasonable and polite.

“A walk sounds good,” Patrick says to David. He turns to Ken as he shrugs into his coat. “You can finish without me if you want.”

David is still standing in the doorway so the remaining space is too narrow for Patrick to exit without nudging David to the side a little. Which is not not nice.

“Will I be allowed to make polite conversation on this walk?” Patrick asks. 

“I’ve made a list of acceptable topics,” David says, self-aware enough to know he deserves the bite in Patrick's tone. He stops in the stairwell, a hand on Patrick’s arm. “I’m sorry about yesterday. That’s the first topic on the list.”

“Okay,” Patrick says. He tips his head to the side, pondering.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What?” David repeats.

“I’m not sorry I stormed off.”

“Okay.” David says, surprised. This version of Patrick is new—snarky still but not the least bit contrite.

Patrick glances at the concrete wall next to him and then back at David. When he speaks again, his voice husks. “I fought for you. I fought for you over and over. I’m not fighting for you anymore.”

“Good. I don’t want you to,” David lies. Because if Patrick only knew the day he stopped fighting was the day David was ready to forgive him. And now David can’t forgive himself for giving up the fight.

“Okay,” Patrick says. And he looks so sad that David wants to take it all back. Every last truth and lie he’s ever told him since they broke up. When they start down the stairs Patrick speaks again, resigned. “What’s the next topic on your list.”

“I . . . got you something?”

Stevie likes to tease David about his face journeys, but Patrick has them too. More subtle, maybe, but it’s gorgeous the way his face takes a smooth, quiet ride from sullen to bright. He’s delighted, and the packages in David’s pocket feel insignificant now.

“You got me a present?” Patrick asks.

“Um, no? It’s just—Here.”

David hands him two plastic packets.

“Ear plugs?” Patrick asks.

“For the sound machine,” David says.

“You mean the oxygen concentrator?” Patrick asks. And yes, obviously that’s what David means. Because the sound machine is David’s, not Ken’s. And Patrick is sleeping with Ken. Or in Ken’s room. Or—anyway.

“That thing. Whatever the thing was that you said is keeping you up at night.”

“The oxygen concentrator. Thanks,” Patrick says, slipping the blue foam ear plugs in his pocket.

"You're welcome."

“Wow it really snowed last night, huh?” Patrick asks as they emerge from the bottom of the stairwell into the brilliant, cold day.

“Yeah,” David agrees. The paths are shoveled, but the sun bouncing off the fresh blanket of snow is blinding.

“Want to tell me the rest of your discussion topics?” Patrick asks, nudging David a little with his elbow as he stuffs his hands in his pockets.

“How do you know there’s more?”

“You do this shifty-eye glance when you want to talk to me about something,” Patrick says. “Yeah. That.”

“Okay. Well I was thinking about what you said, about making things less weird. And I would like that.”

“Oh,” Patrick says. “Does that mean we can talk about what happened?”

“Yes? I mean we could. Do that. Eventually,” David stalls, because no, he’s not sure he does want to talk about what happened. “But maybe when there’s a little less going on?”

“Oh, is something important happening today?” Patrick asks.

“Just your Olympic debut.” David waves it off, offering him a wry smile. Patrick takes it gratefully.

“Oh that? That’s nothing,” Patrick plays along. And for a minute this doesn’t feel weird at all. It feels . . . nice even. 

“Anyway. I think, while we’re here, it will be easier and more fun for both of us if we just try to be friends.”

“Friends,” Patrick says, like he’s trying out the word. “That’s—Yeah, sure. If that would be easier for you we can try that.”

David can see Patrick is placating him, but he doesn’t get a chance to ask why before something cold detonates in the center of his back.

“Holy fuck!” David shouts, turning around.

Stevie is standing ten feet away. She is looking very Canadian in her bright red and white toque, and looking not nearly as contrite as she should be. Alexis is next to her, rolling up another snowball.

Patrick who has turned to see what the fuss is, takes the hit from Alexis in the shoulder.

“Hey, why did I get one?” he asks through his laughter.

“Guilty by association.”

“Uh oh, what did he do?”

“Stood me up for dinner last night," Stevie says.

“Here, let me,” Patrick says, interrupting David's disgruntled yeti motions to help him brush the snow off the center of his back. He speaks low into David's ear from behind him. “Try not to exact your snowball fight revenge on Stevie, okay? I'd kind of like that to just be our thing.”

_“This is cashmere,” David moans, holding the sweater away from his body to prevent the moisture from soaking through another layer._

_“David,” Patrick says, so gentle as his hands cradle David’s face. Patrick rests a kiss against his forehead, another on his cheekbone, another on the corner of his mouth. David’s eyes close reflexively as he lets himself be soothed. “I’m sorry. I thought the snowball fight would be fun. I didn’t know your coat is apparently not functional outerwear.”_

_“No, I’m sorry,” David says, continuing to extract himself from his soggy garments. His skin feels clammy wherever it made contact with the wet clothing. “It was fun at first.”_

_“C’mere,” Patrick whispers, his hands soft as he separates David’s undershirt from his waistband and tugs it over David’s head. David wonders what it might be like to wear a shirt he doesn’t care about, just to feel Patrick yank it off him. “Cold?”_

_“Mmhmm,” David nods. _

_Patrick’s shirt is rough against David’s skin as he closes David into his arms, sharing his warmth. _

_“You have a pretty good throwing arm,” Patrick says, kissing the corner of David’s jaw when it tightens as he smiles. “Get you an actual winter coat and you could be a threat.”_

_“It’s October. Blizzards in October are—”_

_“Incorrect. I know. You mentioned that.”_

_Patrick is covering him in kisses now. The steam from Patrick’s mouth sweeps across his skin, the dense warmth of his breath seeping into David’s pores, heating him from the inside out._

_Patrick kisses and nudges him to the bedroom and keeps going, backing David into the dresser. David has never been kissed the way Patrick does. It’s an end in and of itself. Like if David says this is enough for tonight, Patrick will have had his fill. Like there’s no "just" when it comes to kissing, because it’s the most sexual and intimate gift he can offer. _

_It doesn’t stop Patrick from offering more though, testing his teeth in the meat of David’s shoulder._

_“Do that again,” David gasps. Patrick does, harder, and David doesn’t think he’ll ever be cold again._

_“What else do you want, David,” Patrick asks, tongue laving the skin he’s just marked. “You know I love it when you tell me what you want.”_

_His voice is low, almost a growl, and it works like it always does, moving them into another gear. Patrick twists his hip so it brushes against David’s cock, struggling against his pants._

_“Inside.” David surges into the contact. “I want to make you come when I’m inside you.”_

_“Okay, David,” Patrick says, as casually as if David had asked him to make a sandwich. David just shakes his head because he knows Patrick likes this too. It’s about more than giving David what he wants. Not only will David allow Patrick to dismantle his walls, but he’ll walk Patrick through the steps. And Patrick craves it, not just figuring out David’s secrets but letting David reveal them._

_David sits on the bed in his boxer-briefs, watching Patrick undress. Years of skating have molded his lower body into a stunning composition of muscle and flesh. David loves fucking his thighs, his ass, his mouth, any place Patrick will open for him._

_“Changing your mind?” Patrick asks, stepping into the V of David’s legs. His eyes are so quiet, so sure, David is starting to think there’s forever there, in that certainty. He sends that thought away for now. It's only been four months._

_“There are a lot of good choices,” David hedges, sliding his hands down Patrick’s back and nudging gently into the crease to feather his fingers over Patrick’s entrance. _

_“Okay,” Patrick says. “I’ll give you some time to decide. Can I hear our word?”_

_“Zamboni,” David utters their safe word. "Absolutely not," had been David's reaction when Patrick suggested it. Somehow i_ _t stuck anyway._

_“Good.”_

_Patrick lowers them both to the mattress, hand digging into the hairs on David’s chest as he works his way down. He acts like he has all the time in the world, like David can’t feel his dick yearning against his leg. Patrick’s palms stroke the curves of David’s arms until they’re spread out to his sides._

_“Leave them there until you decide what you want,” Patrick says._

_“Mmm,” David hums. It’s a version of a game they play sometimes, where David is both in charge and incapacitated. David loves this feeling of floating here with Patrick, suspended between conflicting states._

_“Is this what you meant by inside me?” Patrick’s eyes stay on David’s, watching David watch as his cock disappears into Patrick’s mouth._

_“No. Yes. I want—Oh fuck,” David groans as Patrick’s tongue works around the head. David’s fingers twitch where Patrick left them splayed on the mattress, aching to dig into his hair. His hips are fighting a similar battle, and Patrick pins them so David can’t quite set the pace he needs._

_Patrick pops off and kisses a trail from David’s leaking cock to the outside of his hip. His wispy stubble is just soft enough to tickle the sensitive skin when he speaks. “Are you still mad about your sweater?”_

_“Yes. Now that you reminded me.”_

_“I never really liked that one anyway,” Patrick says. Anticipating David’s impulse to sit up and lecture him on designer knits, Patrick presses into him, leaving their cocks to tangle as he kisses David’s shoulder. “But if you tell me what you want, David, I’ll let you take it.”_

_“I want to fuck you so hard you feel it whenever you think of throwing a snowball at me again.” David feels the laughter as Patrick’s tongue flutters against David’s nipple, a brief reprieve from the careful dismantling he’s doing further down. _

_“Final answer?” Patrick asks, returning his attention to David’s cock. _

_“I don’t—Fuck. Don’t stop that.”_

_“I’m not getting a lot of clear direction here, David,” Patrick says from his thigh. David can feel the puff of breath against his balls before he takes one in his mouth. _

_“Both,” David gasps. “Final answer.”_

_Patrick pauses and grins at him. He comes back and runs his hands along the same route, wrists to elbows to shoulders until he’s cradling David’s face again, kissing him, kissing into him._

_“Good answer,” he says against David’s lips. “Now sit back against the pillows so I can get a better angle, and put your hands on my head.”_

If the look on Patrick’s face is any indication, he’s thinking about the same night. His eyes meet David's and for a second they are both back there, Patrick coming between them as David drove hard inside him.

Patrick's mouth curves up just slightly at the center. "Good thing you’re wearing your winter coat this time," he says with a shrug, because neither of them can pretend away everything.

“Everyone okay?” Stevie asks.

“Sorry about dinner. I was just, uh. Yesterday I was feeling a little—” David falters.

“Were you feeling under the weather, David?” Alexis asks. And speaking of face journeys, she catches the way David’s eyes flit back and forth to see how much Patrick is piecing together, and she and Stevie exchange wide grins.

“Just, you know, a little scratchy throat,” David says. "Didn't want to get you sick."

“Really?” Patrick asks. “Because when I saw you last around four o’clock yesterday you seemed kind of irritable but otherwise fine.”

Patrick meets David's glare with a wide, knowing smile.

“How about I make it up to you with lunch?” David asks Stevie, because the truth is he went back to his hotel the night before, watched the Downton Abbey Christmas Special, and ordered a pizza. And if he tells her that in front of Patrick, Patrick will know everything David isn't telling him.

“Patrick, would you like to join us?” And the minute someone else expresses any interest in being David's best friend, Stevie is fired.

“Yeah, David is buying,” Alexis offers. 

“Nah, you guys have fun," Patrick says. He brushes the remaining snow off his own shoulder, eyes locked on David's. "I'm going to go catch the rest of the movie with Ken."

\-----

“So did you have a nice chat with Patrick?” Stevie asks once they sit down at the sushi counter, David sandwiched between them.

“It was fine,” David says. He doesn’t want to talk about Patrick.

“We share training time, and I’m convinced Ken has more Patrick stories than you do,” Stevie prods.

“Good for Ken,” David says.

“So what’s going on with you two?” Alexis asks.

“Nothing,” David answers. “We’re trying to be friends I think.”

David is still staring at his plate but he can feel the look Alexis and Stevie exchange as it crosses in front of him.

“David,” Alexis says, and it’s her soft voice she only uses when she cares deeply. “You can’t— I really hope you work it out, okay. But I need you to hang on until after the free skate tomorrow. You have to let him focus on this right now.”

“I'm not trying to work it out, Alexis,” David says, dropping his chopsticks on his plate in frustration. “He’s done fighting.”

“He said that?” Stevie asks.

“Yes. And I don’t need you both ganging up on me. I know what he needs to focus on.”

"I know. It's okay." Alexis rubs David’s arm reassuringly. She knows David is trying as hard as he can to keep his history with Patrick separate from their skating, but even David isn't confident it's working anymore.

“David, you told him you were done. You asked him to stop trying,” Stevie presses. “Don’t you see how much of a fight it is for him give you what you asked for?”

David prepares a rebuttal: The texts stopped. The pleas to reconsider dissipated. David was right, Patrick had said. They should just keep it professional, work together for the good of the team, and put all the rest of it behind them. And they had been, except for all the times they hadn’t. But he can't say all of that out loud and make it true.

“Okay, well I’m glad the two of you found something you can bond over at long last, but I’m really fine. Everything is fine. Patrick is fine. Ken is obviously very fine. So let’s talk about something else.”

“I drew the first skate in my group for the short program,” Stevie says, reading his mood.

“Ooh, that’s great. We skate second to last today,” Alexis says. She’s nervous about it, David knows. He adds it to his mental notes for the pep talk he’s going to deliver before they go on. Skating almost last means the ice will be at its most cut up and rough. But they've skated on rough ice plenty of times before.

Alexis and Stevie keep talking about skating order and competitors. David lets their chatter fill in around him, soothed by drama that for once has nothing to do with him. 

\-----

The area where the skaters wait to take the ice is wrapped with blue curtains, stress, and anticipation. David and Ronnie try to keep Patrick and Alexis out of there as long as possible, staying loose on the long corridor under the stadium seats that is closed off for the athletes.

Patrick and Alexis have a pregame routine. It’s as rehearsed as their routine on the ice, involving visualization exercises and a sequence of lifts, jogging, stretching, and honing their muscle memory. But the night is dragging, and David feels like Patrick and Alexis are tumbling along behind it.

“Should we do something?” David asks Ronnie. “They’re getting antsy.”

“I know,” she says, which is worrisome. She’s the seasoned coach. She’s supposed to say he’s imagining things.

“It’s almost time. I’m more worried about messing with their system at this point.”

“Yeah. Yeah okay.” David says.

Finally it's their turn. When Patrick suggested Cage the Elephant for the short program, they’d all thought he was crazy. But the angsty rock has come to define their style. Even with more creative music allowed by recent rule changes, the opening whistling bars of “Trouble” break through a monotonous day of appropriate song choices and force the arena to pay attention. And Patrick has never let David forget it.

_“How about this version,” Patrick asks, adjusting the capo and strumming his guitar. _

_“Just call my name, and I'll be there,” he sings. And god, his voice . . . but that's not the point._

_“No. Mariah Carey is too sacred to be rearranged by your acoustic guitar,” David says. _

_“Oh, just like elite figure skating is too distinguished for Cage the Elephant?” Patrick asks. _

_“Mmhmm, just like that,” David says, weaving his fingers through Patrick’s on the edge of the guitar as he kisses him soundly, mouth open and greedy._

_“Someday I will find the perfect arrangement for Mariah, and you will see that when it comes to music, I am always right.”_

_“Why are you like this?” David asks._

_“Because this is how you like me.” Patrick's words are muffled against the skin under David's ear, although he's laughing too much to kiss him properly._

“Okay it’s go time,” Ronnie says, her clapping hands breaking apart the memory. Patrick and Alexis shed their Team Canada warm-up jackets and make their way to the ice. The arena roars for them. As the reigning World Champions, they can be expected to put on a show.

“You’ve got this. You’ve done it perfectly a thousand times. This is just one more,” David says, hands on Alexis’s shoulders. Ronnie gives Patrick a more brusque version of the same speech.

They take the ice and get into position. The program is two minutes and forty seconds. David has every edge sequence and spiral and jump and lift memorized as if he were on the ice with them. So he notices exactly when it happens, thirty seconds in. Patrick under-rotates the double axel combination and has to take an extra half turn to catch up with Alexis. The audience barely registers it as a mistake. And it might be fine. The axel combination in the routine is their most difficult. They can afford to lose a few tenths here or there.

When he does it again on the triple lutz, the last jump of the program, Ronnie squeezes David’s arm. Neither of them needs to say it. The score will still be high, but there’s too much room above it. Tomorrow night they won’t have any choice but to skate perfectly.

The rest of the night is a blur. Alexis and Patrick gamely endure the Kiss-and-Cry area for their score. They pull off a practiced blend of introspection and "just happy to be here" for their post-skate interviews. They change back into their warmups and hang up their costumes for David to take back to the hotel. David and Ronnie give their best monologues about scoring minutiae and perseverance and how it’s not over yet. How tomorrow they will have to be stronger and better and cleaner, but they can do it. They have been in this position before. And none of them talk about the German team who earned the highest score they have ever received for their short program, and who are currently sitting two points ahead.

Ronnie gives Patrick a comforting pat on the back with a, “Time to let it go, kid. Big day tomorrow.”

Alexis excuses herself to go to the bathroom, and David realizes he can go too. Patrick can see Alexis back to the Olympic Village.

But Patrick looks so angry and sad and disappointed, like he just needs to be able to drop anchor and rest for a minute until he finds his way again.

"I let her down." His voice is hoarse.

"You didn't," David says. He's not Patrick's coach, but he can tell him the truth at least. "You kept it together out there. It would have been easy to let that first mistake derail the whole thing."

"But still. It's my fault we're in this position."

And, well, what are friends for?

“Shh. Here,” David says, draping the garment bag over a nearby chair and holding out his arms. Patrick sinks into them, breathing hard against David’s shoulder, trying not to cry. David pats his back in a _there, there _motion he hopes is soothing.

“You can get my shoulder wet if you need to,” David says. “This jacket is waterproof.”

Patrick laughs into David’s collarbone and sniffles. And well, he fits there. He always has. So David stops the awkward patting, wraps his arms tighter, and offers Patrick a place to anchor.


	4. Medal

_THURSDAY_

Patrick’s arms close around him as his lips forge a path along David’s shoulder, up his neck, nibbling his ear lobe before tickling the hairline behind it, making them both laugh with quiet, half-conscious shudders.

“G’morning,” Patrick mumbles into the back of David’s neck.

“Hi,” David murmurs, not yet ready to open his eyes. Patrick’s chest is solid and heavy against his back. David slides his palm down the smooth skin of Patrick’s forearm where it wraps around his chest, closing over the back of Patrick’s hand and weaving their fingers together. He wants to be held here in these arms forever.

“Want to turn off your alarm?” Patrick asks, sounding uncharacteristically, suddenly shrill.

David realizes his alarm is pinging away on the nightstand. As he fumbles with his phone, Patrick’s arms fall away. When he tries to chase the feeling of warmth and safety and home back across the sheets, the bed is empty. David is alone.

He trudges to the bathroom and turns on the shower, letting the hot water run down over his skin. He is not sure he can function until he washes away the feeling of the solid warmth of Patrick pressed against him in his dream. Which is probably just an extension of the hug yesterday. They had hugged for a long time after the short program, the most physical contact they’ve shared since the breakup.

But today is about Alexis, David reminds himself. About keeping her focused and ready. About helping her win gold. Today, Patrick is Ronnie’s problem.

David turns on the TV while he gets ready, letting the noise drown out his inner-monologue. There are only a few channels in English, all of them playing Olympic coverage. David goes back into the bathroom to start his skin-care routine as the commentators play clips of the previous day’s snowboarding half-pipe competition. David hasn’t been sleeping well here—hasn’t slept well since he went back to sleeping alone—and the bags under his eyes are turning into a full set of Louis Vuitton luggage.

“I thought I was done when Rachel retired,” he hears Patrick’s voice on the television. It’s only nine-o’clock and apparently the universe is planning for David to be relentlessly haunted by the ghost of boyfriend past. “I didn’t really see myself doing this long-term. But we had mutual friends who knew Alexis was looking for a pairs partner. They just kept pushing me to meet with her until finally I did.”

David leaves the bathroom, toothbrush pausing in his mouth. He remembers this interview. David had gone to the CBC studio when they filmed it right before Nationals. Kurt Browning, who leveraged his figure skating career into a CBC commentator spot, sits opposite Alexis and Patrick on a pair of leather sofas in a set designed to look, predictably, like a ski lodge.

“And here you are,” Kurt says. “Two world championships, one national title, and a Royal Bank of Canada sponsorship later, possibly a week away from qualifying for the Olympics.”

“All of that is just icing on the cake,” Patrick adds, smiling at Alexis. “That first phone call to Alexis changed my life. I got a great partner and new friends. Work I enjoy. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.”

Alexis flushes next to him, genuinely touched. Patrick glances toward a spot just to the right of the camera. The spot where David was standing and watching.

“That has to be nice to hear, Alexis,” Kurt suggests, hunting for the story.

“Mmhmm,” Alexis nods. “After my coach left him about thirty voicemails, he probably took the first meeting just to make it stop. But lucky for us it worked out.” The three of them laugh at that. It was twelve voicemails, but David only remembers four or five of them, so it might as well have been thirty.

“So Patrick, everyone was devastated to hear that you and Rachel Covington ended your engagement,” Kurt says. David guesses most people don’t catch the way Patrick’s neck and jaw tighten at the shift in questioning. “But what about the two of you? You obviously have great chemistry. Lots of partners on the ice become partners off the ice.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s not—” Patrick starts.

Alexis pokes a limp downturned finger into his thigh twice, indicating she’ll handle it.

“He’s like, totally in love with my brother?” Alexis says, waving her hanging hands in David’s general direction. “So ew. But I’m really happy for them.”

David sees Patrick’s eyes dart back to David’s spot near the camera, his neck and cheeks turning adorably pink. He turns back to Kurt and takes a deep breath.

“Anyone would be lucky to have Alexis, but I’m—yes. I’m gay.” He exhales and he does one of his almost-smiles. His eyes study his hands and then he looks up again and smiles for real. Watching him now, two months later, so much distance between them, and David still smiles too.

_“Fuck, I have to call my parents,” Patrick says once the interview is over, jogging down the two steps separating the log cabin set from the rest of the sound stage. _

_“Mr. Brewer, sir, I need your mic!” a production assistant calls after him. Patrick unclips the small microphone from the collar of his jacket, but the cord is threaded around his shoulder to the battery pack at the small of his back and he gets more tangled trying to free himself._

_“Here, let me,” David says, grounding Patrick with a press of his hand to Patrick’s cheek and helping him out of his jacket._

_“Patrick, I’m so sorry,” Alexis says. “I didn’t realize you were—”_

_“Alexis, it’s fine,” Patrick responds, turning so the production assistant can access the clip on his waistband. “I’m—I don’t want it to be a secret. I just have to make some phone calls.”_

_Back in his dressing room, Patrick picks up his phone, pulls up his mom’s number, and stares at it._

_“I’ll go,” David says, giving Patrick’s shoulder an encouraging squeeze. _

_“No,” Patrick says. David joins him on the couch, watching as his thumb hovers over the call button. Patrick sets the phone aside and drops his head into his hands. _

_“You don’t have to do this. You can do this on your own time,” David says, squeezing the nape of Patrick’s neck. It’s a spot David’s hand is perfectly sized for, a spot that settles Patrick instantly in one context and makes him wild in another._

_“David, I want them to know. I just wanted to tell them in person,” Patrick says. When he turns to David his face is even more pale than usual. _

_“I know. Hey, I’m sure we can ask them to cut out that part out of the interview.”_

_“No. I want to be out. I want to, David. I'm just— What if my parents see me differently, or—” Patrick doesn't finish so David just pulls him closer. He takes David’s right hand, moving one of the rings from the second knuckle on his middle finger to his ring finger. _

_“Patrick!” Alexis says, knocking on the door._

_“I just need a minute.” Patrick calls._

_“I can have them cut it out,” Alexis offers through the door. “I learned in my advanced media studies course that—”_

_“It’s fine, Alexis. I’ll come find you when I’m off the phone.”_

_“She feels awful,” David says._

_“She should,” Patrick says, although the line of his mouth is gently curved. “You know I’m not even mad at her for outing me. I’m gay. It felt good to finally say it.”_

_“Oh?” David asks._

_“Yeah. And now that everyone will know, I can kiss you no matter who is watching.”_

_Patrick leans in and kisses him in demonstration, his tongue teasing it’s way inside David’s lips before he pulls back. _

_“Mmm, I like the sound of that.” David takes another half-open, half-tongue kiss. “But then maybe you should let her know you’re not mad?”_

_“Oh I’m still mad. I sorta wanted to tell you how I feel about you before your sister announced it on national television,” Patrick says. _

_“Oh,” David says. It wasn’t that he didn’t hear Alexis say Patrick is in love, but he’d been distracted by the more pressing issue._

_“And I know you’ve only said it twice to Alexis and once to Mariah Carey, and that’s fine. You can say it when you’re ready. But I love you, David.”_

_“I—” David starts. Patrick’s eyes go wide, shocked that David might say it back so quickly. But David can’t make the words come, even if they are true. “Thank you. For telling me.”_

_He braces himself for Patrick’s disappointment but instead, Patrick just smiles softly and kisses him again._

_“You’re welcome. Will you stay with me while I call them?”_

_“Yes,” David says, pulling him closer and rubbing his back as he dials. _

_“Hey mom,” Patrick says when she answers the Brewers’ landline. “Is dad home too?” _

_There’s some shuffling and then he can hear Patrick’s dad pick up another phone. They exchange a few pleasantries and launch right into news on the home front. At the first nanosecond of a break in their babbling, Patrick cuts in. _

_“Anyway, I’m calling because I wanted to tell you that I met someone. I’m seeing someone.”_

_David hears more muffled, excited chatter as Patrick stares nervously at their intertwined hands on his knees. _

_“Uh, well, _his _name is David.” _

They don’t play the entire interview. It's one of the endless hot-take specials that air during the two weeks, this one about queer athletes. It’s over by the time David finishes brushing his teeth. David still remembers the way it felt though, the way Patrick’s “I love you” lodged in his heart, pushed out to the tips of his fingers and toes and ears by his blood. David never did say it back. A week after the interview, Patrick was a national champion, an Olympic qualifier, and newly single.

When the TV hosts turn their attention to Kenneth Tremblay, David turns off the TV and queues up a playlist on his phone instead. That interview is one of their last good memories together, despite the drama of Patrick being outed. Patrick transformed him that day into somebody who knows what it is to be loved. That's a piece of himself he plans to keep forever, even if he doesn't get to keep Patrick.

\-----

The road to the botanical garden is busier than David expected. The light rail tram rocks to a stop at every intersection as masses of pedestrians, bicycles, scooters, and cars cross in the opposite direction. David checks his phone; they will have to leave earlier than he planned to make sure they are back in the Olympic Village on time.

Every competition, David finds a quiet place to take Alexis that is removed from the venue and activity. It’s unconventional, maybe, but it’s a tradition now. Something just for the two of them.

When they disembark at last, Alexis smiles at the large glass-roofed conservatory. Palms and steam rise to the top, visible through the glass above the blocky entrance canopy. Most of the exterior plantings are buried under snow, but a few trees make a hard-textured webbing over the outdoor walkway, drawing them in.

“This is a good idea, David,” Alexis says, tugging on his sleeve.

The facility is organized as a museum of plant life, arranged according to region of the world. They spend most of their time at a grouping of benches in the tropical zone, soaking up the heavy heat amid the rainforest setting. David is happy to temporarily ignore the changes this winter has wrecked on his life and rest in the sun for a while.

“Ready for tonight?” David asks.

“I am. Do you think Patrick will be okay? He seemed so defeated last night.”

“Ronnie is good with him,” David says. “She’ll poke at him a little until he’s back in fighting mode.”

“Okay,” Alexis says, still uncertain.

“You just have to look at it like any other competition. You have come back from worse.” David leans back on the bench, tipping his head towards the sun.

“I know. It’s just—David I’ve been thinking.”

“Oh no, never do that.” David jokes. She swats him with her wrist.

“You know how I’ve been taking those online courses?”

“I do.” The classes have made her more focused and direct, and also unbearable. Every time a topic arises that is even tangentially related to her courses, she can’t resist sharing her newly-acquired knowledge. 

“Anyway now that mom and dad are poor—”

“I don’t think we can call them poor.” By the time Johnny Rose realized what their business manager was doing with his accounts, Eli had left the country. Most of what was left was required to settle government debts, another result of Eli’s crimes. Johnny and Moira were hands-off parents generally, but David got the impression they actually wanted to be here this time. As it is, they are stuck in Tornoto, knee-deep in damage control. Not for the first time, David is grateful he and Alexis have skating to give them a direction that doesn't rely on their parents' emotional or financial support.

“Well you know what I mean. Now that they are just, like, normal.”

“Would we say normal?” David asks. She matches his crooked grin and rolls her eyes and stomps her foot

“David, the point is I have to like, make money and support myself once I’m done skating.”

“I see,” he nods, realizing where she's going. Alexis is his only client. If she quits, he’s out of a job too.

“Anyway,” she huffs. “If we win tonight, I sort of want to try something else. I think I could be, like, a really smart and important girl boss if I, you know, apply myself. Or something.”

“Oh,” David says. He often defaults into teasing mode with Alexis, but it’s not hard to take her seriously when she takes herself seriously in this way. “But, like, the boss of what?”

“I don’t know. I was thinking maybe I could do like communications or marketing or something. For skaters. You know like find them sponsorships and stuff.”

“Ah,” David says. “You mean like an agent?”

“I don’t know! I just started thinking about it.”

“You could be good at that,” David says. She really would be. Alexis had basically landed them the Royal Bank of Canada ad campaign by chatting up an executive at a mixer at their parents’ house. She hides a lot of depth under her shallow presentation. She sneaks up on you. “I say that as your brother. As your coach, I should tell you to worry about tonight today and worry about tomorrow tomorrow.”

“Yes I know. And I’m totally doing that? It’s just . . . If I do decide to do that, what would you do?”

“Um, I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.” He has thought about it. A lot. He just hasn’t come up with an answer.

“Maybe you should. Think about it,” she says gently.

“Yeah. I will. Tomorrow.”

David stands up. They have a half hour or so before they need to head back, and he doesn’t want to talk about this anymore.

“David,” she says, scratching a little on the side of his arm until he sits back down with a huff. “If I retire, you won’t see Patrick every day.”

“Alexis I would rather fire myself as your coach than have you retire just because it’s hard for me to see my ex every day.”

“Well I wouldn’t be retiring for you, David. I’m a really good sister but, like, I have _limits_. I’m just sad that I’m the reason it’s been hard for you.”

“Alexis, he’s the reason it’s been hard for me. It’s not you.”

“David I think you chose to blame him and not me because it would be too complicated to blame both of us.” She’s so quiet now. Her hands stay still in her lap, her lips closed softly after the last word.

“What do I have to blame you for? He’s the one who convinced you to do the move behind my back.”

“Yes, because when we all discussed it, you pretty much refused to hear him out. What choice did he have?”

“He could have chosen to listen to the fucking coaches. The quad throw salchow is dangerous. You’re not a conventional pairing, you’re both relatively inexperienced, and you’re not exactly a tiny person.”

“Ugh, I’m basically sample-sized, David. But we can talk about that later. What I'm saying is_—_”

“Alexis. We all talked about it. We all decided not to do it. We all agreed you didn’t need the points if you just focused on skating a clean program. And then I sat there during the free skate and watched him launch you into the air in the middle of a huge competition. You could have ruined your chances of qualifying. You could have been injured and unable to compete here. You could have been injured and unable to compete ever again.”

“I know. He knows. We shouldn’t have done it. But we did land it. And it won us the gold medal. Sometimes athletes take risks, David. That doesn't make them wrong, just because they are risks.”

“Alexis, I’ll never get a chance at an Olympic medal because I was stupid. I pushed myself to do a jump I wasn’t ready for and broke my leg in four places.”

“I know,” she says. He doesn’t have to tell her how agonizing it was. She watched the stretcher take him off the ice, watched his slow and painful recovery, watched him fight against the ice for two years until he finally gave up. David wasn’t a top level skater before the accident. He might never have made it here, to a competition like this. But now he’ll never find out what he might have been capable of.

“Alexis, Patrick told me he had to talk you into it. I’m not mad at you. I’m not sure I could be mad at you if I wanted to be. It’s a flaw in my genetics or something.”

“Okay. So then just be really really annoyed with me then and give Patrick a break.”

“Oh I am,” he says. She smiles and boops him under his chin. He tries to smile back, but it’s hard. He’s forgiven Patrick, but the memory of watching Patrick throw his sister into a move they had all decided wasn’t worth the risk still stings. It was a terrible surprise and a brutal betrayal. 

“My point, David, is that no matter what happens tonight, I think I’m ready to move on. So you need to decide if you are too.”

“Does Patrick know you’re thinking about this?”

“Yes,” she says. “We’ve talked a few times about what’s next.”

“And what does he say is next?”

She purses her lips and studies him like every line of his face is highlighted, supporting whatever conclusion she is trying to draw. But she doesn’t answer his question.

“I think after tonight, David, you should ask him.”

\-----

The night is starting to feel too much like the previous one. Patrick and Alexis are pacing in the warm-up area, teetering on their skates. They are in the last group again, skating last this time. To make matters worse, the German team has just put up their best score ever in the free skate. Patrick and Alexis asked not to hear the exact number, but they can hear the gasps and excitement in the audience and the roar of the crowd as the German team returns to the curtained off staging area with their previously-unattainable final score. Alexis and Patrick know they have to put up their own personal best if they have a chance at winning.

Their free skate is set to Hans Zimmer's composition "Time" from the _Inception _soundtrack. Patrick wears the button-up costume—it pulls even more on David’s memory when it is molded to Patrick’s body than it did on the hanger—and Alexis wears a sequined bronze dress. The choreographer used her spins to evoke the spinning top style of totem that the main character uses in the film to discern dreams from reality. David fights back tears as he watches his sister give everything she has, knowing she’s thinking it might be her last time competing like this. Patrick matches her every stride and jump and turn; they glide smoothly across the ice. They make it look so easy, selling the tension and the conflict inherent in willing an impossible dream to come true.

Their skate finishes with Alexis spinning and spinning until the music stops. They break character, elated. And they should be. Somewhere to David's left, Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir are so overcome he can hear their entire commentary now. It’s the kind of performance, they’re saying, that you remember for years into the future. Stars rising to shine over their Olympic moment or some other dramatic turn of phrase pre-written for the occasion and delivered like it's just popped into their heads. 

David feels a little lost in a dream himself as Alexis and Patrick step off the ice and make their way to the Kiss-and-Cry. The four of them, Alexis, Patrick, Ronnie, and David, have been doing this together for three years now. It’s only just occurred to him that this could be the last time.

The scores roll in. Their technical components score is high.

“Never seen that number before!” Ronnie cackles, slapping a hand against her thigh. Patrick’s arm is still around Alexis; he gives her big squeeze as they wait for the second score. The program components score is also the highest they’ve ever received. Patrick and Ronnie high five and Alexis boops Patrick’s nose.

When the scores are added, though, the energy drops. Alexis Rose/Patrick Brewer is inserted right below the German team on the leader board. The margin was a tenth of a point too wide. They will be taking home the silver medal.

Once the interviews are over, the athletes head back to the dressing rooms to change. The medals ceremony will take place the following day at the podiums near the Olympic flame, so all that’s left for the night is to pack up and go back to their rooms and remember that for most athletes, even silver is an unattainable dream.

Alexis returns from the dressing room, face freshly washed and eyes still a little damp.

“You wanna talk about it?” David asks.

“Not tonight,” she says. “Tomorrow?”

“Okay,” he says.

“Can I—I think I might want a hug though?” she says. David has never been much of a hugger except with Patrick, but he opens his arms and pulls her in.

“You should be proud of what you did here,” he says, because she should be.

“I know. I think you should talk to him. If you can. Ronnie isn’t always the most comforting, you know?”

“Mmm,” David says, noncommittal.

Alexis says she’s going to walk back by herself anyway—she wants some time to process alone—so David does a lap past the men’s changing rooms to see if Patrick is still around. He finds him, still in costume, talking to Ken.

“Anyway, I should go change,” Patrick says to Ken, spotting David in his peripheral vision. “But thanks for coming and watching.”

“My pleasure,” Ken says. “You were incredible.”

“Thanks,” Patrick says, a little shy. He drops his face to the floor, looking up through his eyelashes. David should just go, but he can’t seem to move.

“Okay. Well, I’ll see you back at the room,” Ken says. Then he brushes the fabric of the sleeve of Patrick’s blue costume shirt and leans in and pecks Patrick’s cheek. It’s a nothing kiss. Friendly and casual. He could have stuck his tongue down Patrick’s throat for the way it feels to David.

“Hey,” Patrick says, walking closer because David’s feet still won’t fucking move.

“Hey,” David responds. “I just came to see how you were doing, but it looks like you’re doing good. So, um, I guess I’ll see you at the medals ceremony.”

“David.”

“What?” David asks, throwing his hands in the air. He knew at some point he would run out of masks to hide the way he's been feeling. Apparently that point is now.

“Are you sure you want me to move on?” Patrick asks.

“Move on?” David replies. His voice is too high, and he can tell his face is out of control.

“Should I move on, or should I try one more time?” he asks.

“I don’t—Um. What do you mean?”

“Should I move on?” Patrick asks again, more slowly. This time he steps into David’s space. He’s so close David can smell the adrenaline sloughing off of him. “Or should I try one more time?”

“What do you want to do?” David asks. He doesn’t know why he’s playing games. He wants to scream at Patrick to try as many times as it takes. But he’s scared.

“You know what one of the reporters asked me tonight?” Patrick asks, leaning back just enough to take in David’s whole face.

“What?” David isn't sure he wants to know, not the way Patrick is looking at him now.

“They asked me why we didn’t do the quad throw. They did the math, and apparently if we’d landed it like we did at Nationals, it would have pushed us over.”

David swallows hard.

“And what did you say?”

“I lied. I said we think we got lucky at Nationals and we didn’t want to risk it.”

“I see.”

“You want to know the real answer?” Patrick asks.

“I don't know. Do I?” David asks.

“The real answer is that I can’t lose you. Even the fragment of you I have left. I’d rather lose the medal.”

David sucks in a breath and blinks hard. He still feels like he can’t fucking move even though he wants to sweep Patrick into his arms and never let go.

“You don’t have to answer my question tonight,” Patrick says. “I’ll give you twenty-four hours.”

Patrick moves close again, his nose touching David’s cheek. David can feel his heaving breaths against his lips. He braces his hands on David’s arms, hot and firm and a little rough. For a minute David thinks he’s going to kiss him. David closes his eyes and longs for the familiar press of Patrick’s lips. But Patrick backs away instead. “You owe it to me to tell me if I should move on. Because from where I’m standing, David, it looks like you’re no more ready to move on than I am.”

David doesn’t get a chance to respond. Marcy and Clint Brewer choose the moment to burst through the checkpoint with their badges, no doubt arranged by Ronnie, and bury Patrick in enthusiastic hugs and kisses.

“I thought you guys couldn’t come,” he says. His voice is hollow and he coughs, trying sound normal for them.

“Your dad got someone to cover him at work. We couldn’t miss this.” Mrs. Brewer says, holding his cheeks in her hands.

“Ronnie was a tough customer, though,” Mr. Brewer adds. “Said we couldn’t tell you we were here until you were done skating. Didn’t want a last-minute surprise to throw you off.”

"Oh my sweet boy," Mrs. Brewer says. "We're so very proud of you."

“I'll give you all some time to catch up,” David says, excusing himself. But he lets Patrick holds his gaze for a minute longer, looking over his parents' shoulders. “We'll talk tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m going to admit that I have no idea what makes one song inherently better than another for skating, so I’m just going with symbolism of the lyrics/associated film and general mood of the songs. If we can bend reality enough to believe Patrick and Alexis would make an Olympic caliber pairs skating team, I think we can pretty much accept anything, yes?


	5. Kotinos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you are thinking about using Olympic symbolism for chapter titles and you stumble on the symbol kotinos, which means _OLIVE BRANCH_, you thank the Greek god of fic-writing and don’t ask any further questions. And since I know Olympic trivia in the front notes is really what keeps you coming back, I’ll tell you that the kotinos crown was used instead of medals in the ancient Olympics. In modern times has come to represent the spirit of peace and reconciliation between countries during the Olympic Games.

_FRIDAY_

The 7-Eleven down the street from his hotel has been a good find. It’s far enough from the Olympic Village that it isn’t overrun with tourists. It sells alcohol and snacks and even decent real food. David picked up dinner there last night after saying goodbye to Patrick and his parents.

The petite woman who runs the place looks like she stole Magdalena from his mother’s wig collection. She pulls off the look, complimenting it with an asymmetrical jacket and heavy eyeliner. She knows David on sight now and gives him a cordial nod between customers as he punches his coffee order into the machine. The coffee is pretty good considering the source. None of the foreign words on the screen translate to caramel macchiato—he checked—but the machine makes a decent espresso.

When he had bought earplugs for Patrick the other day, he also discovered a room in the back with tables. It is a soothing space, nestled far enough into the building to avoid the street noise with two large windows punched into the pale yellow walls offering light from a central courtyard. Quiet instrumental music masks the din of customers in the store. David slides the small glazed pot with its shoot of bamboo to the edge of the table and sits down, setting his cup and journal in front of him.

He takes a sip of his espresso and flips to the next blank page. For the first time since David became someone who keeps a journal, he stares at the smooth paper, feeling too overwhelmed to start.

_“I don’t understand what I’m supposed to write about,” David says, looking at the black spiral-bound notebook._

_“It doesn’t have to be profound, David.” She has a full voice and eyes that seem to listen as well as her ears. The name on her door is Dr. Rebecca Fraser. She’s a sports psychologist and might be David’s last hope of getting back on the ice. He’s supposed to call her Dr. Becky though because Becky sounds like the kind of person you might sit down with in a park and have a nice chat._

_“Just start with the date, the weather, and three things you did today.” Dr. Becky pushes the notebook into his hands. “Use breakfast, lunch, and dinner if you really can’t think of anything else. But I suspect you’ll find that those three things turn into more once you get going.”_

_“I’m not really understanding how this is going to fix my leg,” David says. She looks at him with what is starting to feel like trademarked sympathetic patience._

_“Frankly it won’t,” she says. “With an injury like yours, David, I often find it isn’t just your leg that needs to heal. Just try it for a week.”_

_“I’ll try anything,” David admits and takes the notebook._

_Later that night, before bed, David opens to the first page and uncaps his pen. He writes the date, “February 10,” and the weather, “way too much fucking snow.” He tries to come up with three things._

_"1) Saw Dr. Becky – second visit. Seems to think this notebook will solve my problems. This is me officially recording my skepticism._ 2) _Watched Olympics with Stevie – She says we are both going to qualify in four years. She definitely will._ 3) _Did PT exercises for an hour. Tried to skate. Lasted ten minutes before everything hurt."_

_David pauses there and stares at the page. He finished his three things, but Dr. Becky wasn’t wrong. It’s easy to keep going now, so he does. He fills three pages before he is done. In five months, he buys another one, leather-bound and nicer. Four months after that, it’s full. He doesn’t write every night, but most nights he records at least three things from the day. Sometimes he writes pages and pages in one sitting._

_The journal helps. At first, when things feel impossible, it gives him a place to dump his day so he can bear to face the next one. The journal is the first place he puts “I’m done” into words before he decides to quit training. It is the first place he registers the idea to coach Alexis when she’s having trouble with her coach and partner. It is the only place he lets himself worry about his parents. It is the place he writes “I think Stevie is my best friend,” three months before he tells her. And about halfway through the twelfth notebook he writes the date at the top, followed by three words: _

_“I kissed him.” _

_It is all he can bring himself to write, because this feeling is one he wants to keep inside as long as possible._

_Patrick learns about the journal at a hotel in Grenoble, France. Earlier that night Patrick and Alexis had won the bronze medal at the Internationaux de France. Their goal was fourth place going into the competition, so everyone is thrilled with bronze. _

_David wakes up around midnight to pee and returns to find Patrick has migrated toward the center in David’s absence, still getting used to sharing a bed. He’s sleeping on his stomach, arms stuffed up under his pillow so his shoulders and biceps are in tension even though the rest of him is relaxed. Patrick’s hair is mussed from David’s fingers. _

_He’s breathtaking like that, even breathing loudly through his scrunched open mouth. David can’t bring himself to wake him to scoot him over. Instead he pulls on his pajama bottoms and takes his journal out of his carry-on. He sits at the small desk, turning the lamp on low. He doesn’t really bother with the three things anymore. He just writes. About the national championships coming up, about the anniversary of his accident. It will be four years next week. But mostly he wants to write about this trip with Patrick._

_Patrick is staying with David in the same hotel room for this competition instead of getting his own room. It’s the first time they are trying it. David stays at Patrick’s apartment a few nights a week, so this seemed like it would be about the same. But it feels more intimate in the small space of the hotel room, each of their routines and habits under closer inspection. During the nights before competitions they don’t have sex—Patrick sleeps ten hours or more if he can—so until this last night David has curled into Patrick’s side and soaked in his slumbering warmth. It feels to David like something has changed here. They have shifted closer, settled in deeper._

_He stops thinking after a while and just lets his thoughts wander onto the page in whatever order they come._

_“Hey,” Patrick says through a yawn, blinking blearily at David from the bed. “It’s almost two in the morning. You okay?”_

_“Yeah. Sorry. Just wanted to get something down.”_

_“Looking over your playbook, coach?” _

_“I’m not writing a play,” David says, confused. David feels a little jolt in his gut at “coach” though. They keep their professional roles separate from their personal relationship as much as possible, but it does things to David when Patrick uses coach as a pet name, even in jest._

_“Never mind,” Patrick says with one of his private smiles that means he’s going to file something away for later. “Was I hogging the bed again?”_

_“It’s okay. I wanted to write a little tonight anyway.”_

_“What are you writing?” Patrick asks, getting up. David snaps the notebook closed before he can get close enough to read it, and Patrick takes the hint and stops advancing, puzzled._

_“I keep a journal. It’s—It’s not a secret. I just don’t always put my best self in here, you know?” David stands up and goes to Patrick’s side of the bed, prepared to distract him with kisses and maybe even a hand job if that’s what it takes. _

_“Is there stuff about me in there?” Patrick asks. David nuzzles into the ticklish spot on his neck, making him laugh. _

_“Maybe.”_

_“Good stuff?” Patrick manages to ask before David nibbles his ear lobe._

_“Some. And true stuff,” David says between kisses. _

_“Mmm like what?” Patrick asks, pressing his mouth into David’s pulse point. Patrick is still naked, and David can feel him getting hard against his hip. _

_“Hey,” David says, catching Patrick’s face in his hands. “I know you’re doing your thing where you kiss me and tease me until I tell you what you want to know.”_

_“Only because you’re doing your thing where you kiss me and flatter me until I’m distracted from what I really want to know.”_

_“I am,” David confirms. Patrick’s eyes hold him there, shining in the dim light, and yeah. Things are definitely shifting here. “Anyway, usually I really like that. But this is—this is different for me. Is it okay if it’s just mine for now?” _

_“Yeah. Of course,” Patrick says, and he doesn’t even look upset. “It can be just yours forever, if that’s what you want.”_

_“Hmm,” David hums. It should probably scare him to hear Patrick say big words like forever, but it doesn’t. It feels . . . restful. _

_“Now if you’d like to keep trying to kiss me and flatter me and distract me anyway, I wouldn’t mind,” Patrick says. _

_“Oh, okay,” David says, laughing into his lips. “Since you asked so nicely.”_

_“Pretty please,” he snarks, but he bites his lip eagerly like he means it._

_So David spends the next several minutes murmuring how much he likes each part of Patrick into his skin. Patrick comes undone slowly until he’s moaning please over and over, asking David to fill him. And since he asked so nicely, David does._

David picks up his coffee cup and sets it down. He thought he might sit here and record the previous day, see if writing about it can help him sort out what he wants. But that’s not it, really. He already knows what he wants. He just doesn’t know what else Patrick can possibly do or say or offer that will be different from any of the previous times. So he’s afraid to let him try.

He closes the journal again and turns it in his hands. This particular notebook looks different from the others. The day of their breakup, the night after Patrick and Alexis won Nationals, is near the beginning. David had taken a black marker to the edge of that page and the all the subsequent pages for several weeks afterward, until Patrick stopped trying with his gifts and gestures. When the book is closed, there is a thick black stripe around the edge that tells him where those pages are, the After Patrick pages. Looking at it this way, the pages pressed together, he can see just how long Patrick tried to make things right.

He opens it again to the yesterday's entry and flips backwards until he reaches the last of the black-edged pages, the day Patrick said he was going to give David the space he so clearly wanted. David keeps working back through the black-edged days skimming as much as he can bear. He rarely goes through old journals, and he’s starting to realize why. The David on the page is one he barely recognizes, hurt but also hardened. Angry. There’s a Patrick in the pages he doesn’t remember either. One who is lost and frantic and trying everything he can think of to fix things, including, at the end, trying to let David go. Suggesting they both try to move on.

David turns past the black edges into the last days of their relationship. When he flips to a list he forgot he wrote, the spark of an idea surges through him, bringing him to his feet so quickly that he nearly knocks over his chair. He ignores the sideways glance from the couple at the next table over as he packs up his things. If he works quickly, he can get everything he needs before the medal ceremony.

\-----

Patrick takes Alexis’s hand as they climb up to the second-highest podium, waiving at their gathered teammates and supporters. David stands to the side with Ronnie. The Brewers are here somewhere too, trying to push to the front to get better photos.

David watches with a smile as Alexis bends down so the official can drape the medal over her neck. The official takes a second silver medal off the tray for Patrick, and an assistant hands them each a bouquet of flowers. While the gold medal winners take the podium, Patrick and Alexis smile nervously and pose for pictures.

“I got a call from Ray at Skate Canada this morning,” Ronnie says. “Mutt and Tennessee are having some kind of disagreement again so they are out of the Team Skate event. Ray wants us to take over the their Short Program spot.” The Team Skate competition features one skater or pair for each event, with the team with the highest point total across all events taking the gold medal. Team Canada has three pairs teams at the Olympics. Since Patrick and Alexis were expected to win their own gold medal, Ray and his committee made the choice to give the team spots to the other two pairs.

“Is this a done deal?” David asks. “Or are we just on standby until Mutt and Tennessee work it out?”

“Their roster is due today,” Ronnie says. “So our guys are in.”

“Oh. Okay,” David nods, thinking it over. It would be hard to top their free skate last night, but It might be nice for them both to get another chance to skate the short program clean. Especially if Alexis is thinking of retiring.

The national anthem of Germany starts playing, the maple leaf rising next to Germany’s three bars above the medals podium. Patrick and Alexis do a good job hiding their disappointment, smiling gamely and posing for more pictures after the anthem with their silver medals before everyone is ushered offstage to make way for the next group of medal winners.

“And hey,” Ronnie adds, elbowing him, “might get your guy a gold medal after all.”

”You mean Alexis?” David asks. Ronnie tilts an all-knowing eyebrow at him.

”Her too.”

\-----

Marcy and Clint Brewer are clearly sweet, loving, exuberant, and supportive parents. David has liked them since the day of Patrick's unintentional outing when Patrick put David on speaker phone to say hi. But they have been glued to Patrick all damn day. David can’t help but wonder if this is just what normal parents do. His own parents would have begged off to the hotel for a nap by now. So instead of getting Patrick alone for a few minutes, David is watching live hockey in a cold arena.

“Not much of a hockey fan, are you David?” Mr. Brewer intuits from the seat to his left. David is having a hard time following who even has the puck, much less whether they are managing an Olympic-level handling of it.

“I’ve picked up a few key plot points from Patrick,” David says. “But generally, no.”

“Well I’m glad you could come,” he replies, clapping David on the shoulder. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Thanks for the ticket,” David says, nodding and trying to sound genuine. He’s never met the parents of someone he was dating, and well, he and Patrick aren’t even dating now. Which has made this turn of events a little awkward.

When the Brewers had announced after the medal ceremony that they had four tickets to the afternoon’s match-up between Canada and Sweden, they invited Alexis to join them. She had quickly deflected to David, saying she had plans to watch her friend Twyla compete in short track. The three Brewers had looked nervously to David who determined the only thing weirder than going to a hockey game with his ex and his parents was trying to offer any one of the flimsy excuses flying around his head. So here he is, watching hockey with his— Well with Clint.

Patrick and Mrs. Brewer return from a concession run with their hands full. Marcy hands Clint a beer, and Patrick hands David a pretzel before sitting down next to him, Mrs. Brewer on his right.

“Thanks,” David says, his voice quiet.

“Sure,” Patrick says. “Thanks for coming.”

“Sure.”

David does his best to enjoy the game. He lets Clint explain the rules and manages to ask a few follow-up questions that aren’t completely inept. Marcy tells David how they just finished digitizing all their old family photos and shows him a folder called _Patrick—Hockey _on her phone.

It breaks the ice. David flips through the photos of Patrick engulfed by pads and helmets that seem to grow at the same rate he does year after year. There are also a few of him playing shinny with his cousins in the mix.

“You have curls,” David says, zooming in on a photo of teenaged Patrick sitting on his helmet by a frozen lake, hockey stick resting across his knees, squinting into the sun.

“Oh yes, his hair gets curly when it’s long,” Marcy says.

“How did I not know that?” David asks, leaning over Patrick to hand Marcy back the phone. If his arm brushes slightly against Patrick’s, they both pretend not to notice.

“Next time I’ll show you the folder of Patrick’s community theater performances,” Marcy says, patting David’s hand like it’s a promise, both the photos and the “next time.”

“How nice of you to show some restraint, Mom,” Patrick says.

“You hush,” she responds, tapping a reprimanding finger against his shoulder. "This is a mother's prerogative."

Marcy looks at David then and half-winks. It’s exactly the same as Patrick’s wink, her eye only closing halfway, and David feels his breath hitch.

“Do you miss it? Hockey?” David asks. He knows Rachel was a big reason why Patrick took up figure skating. They have never talked much about Patrick’s life as a hockey player.

“Not really,” Patrick says. “When I was playing hockey, I used to leave a piece of myself outside the door of every room I walked into. I know I didn’t have to, but . . . Anyway now I can just be myself. This feels right.”

“It does,” David agrees, not entirely sure what he's agreeing to. He’s dangerously close to telling Patrick everything he’s been thinking since his morning coffee, even though this is not the place.

“Probably wouldn’t have made it to the Olympics in hockey,” Mr. Brewer offers, saving David from himself.

“Hey!” Patrick says. “I was a good power forward until everyone else got bigger than me.”

“Oh sure,” Mr. Brewer says, laughing with him. “You’re right. If Olympic hockey players were the same size as Ontario teenagers, you would have done very well here.”

“Wow,” David says, not bothering to tuck away his grin as he turns to Patrick. “So many things are making sense now.”

Patrick just grins back and shakes his head. Team Canada scores, but Patrick keeps his eyes on David even as Patrick’s parents stand up and cheer.

“They leave in the morning,” Patrick says, the thickness in his voice masked by the roar of the crowd. “David, if I had known they were coming, I wouldn’t have—”

“It’s okay,” David says, dipping his head close so Patrick can hear him. “They came all this way to celebrate with you. It can wait.” 

David hopes he's right.

Team Canada ekes out the win, putting the Brewers in a great mood as they make their way back towards the plaza.

“What do you have planned for the rest of the day, David?” Mrs. Brewer asks. She’s not a good actor. He can tell she’s going to try to invite him to whatever they are doing next if he doesn’t sound busy.

“The practice rink has open skate until seven, so I think I might head over there and then meet up with a friend for dinner. What about you?”

“Alexis was telling us about the botanical gardens. I think we’re going to see if we can figure out public transit and pay them a visit.”

“Someplace warm sounds good to my old bones,” Mr. Brewer agrees. The way he rolls his shoulders looks very familiar.

“The conservatory is very nice,” David says. “I should let you go”

“It was just lovely to meet you officially, dear,” Marcy says. She hesitates for a split second and then moves in, wrapping David in a tight hug. David feels like he might cry, for reasons can't begin to articulate.

“Good to meet you both. Officially,” David says. Since it would be weird to hug his mom and not Patrick, David gives him a quick hug goodbye too.

“I’ll come find you when they leave,” Patrick says into his neck.

\-----

The open skate time was a convenient excuse to give the Brewers some family time and to get away cleanly before David made a fool of himself. He wasn’t actually planning on skating. But when he gets back to his room, he eyes the skates he hasn’t laced up since he arrived here and decides it’s a good idea after all. A few days ago, he was trying to keep as much distance between himself and Patrick as possible. Now he is having Olympic Moments with Patrick's family, or however the fuck the phrase goes. Since it doesn’t look like he will get a minute alone with Patrick until tomorrow, a few rounds on the ice might settle his mind.

The ice practice facility is on the edge of the Olympic Village. It is really a large, temporary metal shed with huge steel trusses spanning the full width of the space and large space heaters poking up from the rubber-floored zones to keep it comfortable enough for the coaches and other support people standing around. There is an outer oval speed skating track of ice that circles two practice rinks with hockey markings. The outer track is mostly empty—the speed skaters have a separate reserved time for training—but a few people are taking a leisurely skate around the perimeter.

David laces up his skates and glides out onto the track. His leg never feels as steady as he wants it to on skates, but after a half lap he finds his balance. A few more laps, and he’s comfortable and comfortably out of his head.

“I love the way you move on the ice.” Patrick’s voice breaks into his thoughts as he skates up next to him.

“Did your parents decide to try open skate instead?” David asks.

“No, although you made quite an impression on them. It took an embarrassing amount of pleading to get them to continue to the botanical garden instead of following me over here.“

“I see,” David says, coasting to a stop near the bench at the inside edge of the track where he left his duffel bag.

“David, I know I was supposed to let you choose, but I have to try. I have to try one more time or I’ll—”

“Don’t,” David says. Patrick’s face falls, and David rushes to continue. “No, wait. That's not what I mean. It's just, you did try. You tried everything. I think . . . I think it’s my turn. To try.”

Patrick stands there, frozen, until finally his neck tightens and relaxes again as he swallows. “O-okay.”

“I have something for you,” David says, grateful that he thought to put it in his bag on the slimmest chance Patrick was around after David joined Stevie for dinner.

“David, if this is—”

“Let me do this,” David says. He digs in the duffel and returns to the ice, holding a large envelope.

“What is it?” Patrick asks, trying and failing to be patient. 

“I went looking for a frame today, but they were all too corporate for my taste,” David says, handing Patrick the envelope. “It will be easier to take home this way anyway. I’ll frame it for you there. If you—If you want it that is.”

Patrick breaks the seal of the envelope and pulls out an oversized greeting card.

“Hello Kitty?” Patrick asks, completely confused.

“Okay, listen, I needed something to keep it from bending and this was the only card I could find that was the right size and not . . . ridiculous.” It is ridiculous, though. David is regretting everything. He should have bought a book or something. Or just left it—

“It says ‘Congrats,’” Patrick says, interrupting David's spiral, smiling in much the same way the woman at the 7-Eleven had when he’d purchased the card after a morning of fruitless frame shopping.

“Yes, okay, I had some difficulty finding what I needed today. Would you like to do this another time when I'm better prepared?” David snaps.

“Sorry,” Patrick says, sobering at that. He opens the card and looks back up at David, mouth dropped open. “Is this from your journal?”

“Yeah. From the day that you—”

“Told you I loved you,” Patrick finishes, reading the date at the top.

The entry is just a list. David thought if he could write three things he loves about Patrick, he might be able to find the courage to say it out loud. He didn’t stop at three. The list is two pages, eighty-seven items long. They are not all good things. Some are things that David suspects are only loveable because they are attached to someone who is loved. Like Patrick’s compulsive need to be right. And the socks he wears to bed. And the way he says “just five more minutes” and then takes ten minutes or more. And the way he taps his fingers along with any song playing anywhere, including songs that are only playing in his head.

“You asked me once if I wrote about you. If I wrote good things,” David half-whispers, trying to force some air out of his constricted chest.

“And you said you write true things. Which I understood to mean it was not all good.”

“It’s not. But most of it is. Good. And this . . . this list is true. And you should have it.”

Patrick reads through the list again. He looks at David then like he knows he should say something, but he’s overcome.

“Thank you,” Patrick says, finally.

“I’m still angry at you,” David says. He had a whole speech, but Patrick is here in front of him looking at David like he is made of gold. So he’s forgotten the words.

“I—I know,” Patrick says.

“And we need to talk more about that. About why I’m angry at you. But mostly what matters now is how much I miss you. I miss you so fucking much, Patrick.”

“I miss you too,” he croaks, his lower lip trembling.

“So I’m angry at you, but I miss you. And also, most of all, I love you. And if I can miss you this much and love you this much even though I’m angry at you, I think—”

David doesn’t get to finish his thought before Patrick kisses him. He comes a little faster than either of them expect, catching his toe pick and missing David’s mouth, but he finds it on the second try. Their laughter shakes them together until Patrick is pressed against him, hands flat against his back, kissing him inside-out.

Patrick plants a quick kiss on David’s neck as he pulls him closer still and they cling together, like it’s their first time on the ice, and they’ve finally figured out the secret to keep each other from slipping away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm officially at 150K words posted since my first fic in June. Thanks to everyone for reading so many of them and keeping me going.
> 
> Thanks to this-is-not-nothing and pants for helping me brainstorm wtf to do about all the corners I wrote myself into here.


	6. Anthem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In addition to the individual national anthems, the Olympics have their own anthem, entitled the Olympic Hymn. Anyway I chose this title for this chapter because the opening stanza of the English version seems relevant at this juncture of the story: Olympian flame immortal/Whose beacon lights our way/Emblaze our hearts with the fires of hope/On this momentous day.

_TUESDAY_

David can’t keep from smiling at the look on his sister’s face, radiant and beaming. The man who is partially responsible for it smiles next to her as they wave to the crowd, and David loves that too. Loves _him_ too. For all that is still uncertain between them, he knows that for sure.

It’s their third skate on Olympic ice and probably their last. David waits with Ronnie at the wall, blinking back his tears as his sister skates off the ice, waving to the crowd. Patrick steps off the ice after her, accepting a hug from Ronnie. To David’s surprise, Patrick wraps his broad, blunt-fingered hand around the back of David’s neck and angles his cheek to his lips right in front of a broadcast camera. And well, that’s delightfully new.

They take their place in the Kiss-and-Cry to await their scores. Ronnie and Alexis chatter nervously while David rubs his palms against his knees, willing numbers to show up that send them off on a high note. Patrick waves at the nearest camera and says hello to every one of his cousins back home and probably at least a few of their kids.

The numbers come in, extending Team Canada’s lead over China and the United States. Patrick and Alexis wrap each other in a congratulatory hug, the possibilities of the Olympic dream still caught up between them.

They all know the routine from here, letting the uniformed staff nudge them toward the changing rooms. Ronnie usually takes off at this point—she prefers to do her postmortem with Patrick after a night to reflect—but tonight she lingers with David while he waits.

“I heard your guy is hanging up her skates,” Ronnie says.

“I heard that too,” David says, mouth twitching as he imagines Alexis hearing Ronnie calling her David’s guy. “Maybe this year, maybe next.”

“I see. So what does that mean for you?” she asks.

“I don’t know.” David tries to push the corners of his mouth back up where they’ve fallen. She gives him one of her pursed-lipped once-overs.

“No shame in that,” she says, clapping a hand on his back in her strangely-effective brand of soothing. “Good ideas don’t always come linked together in a train. You had a real good idea here with these two, David. The next one will come rolling down the track soon enough.”

“Thanks,” David says. “Although I think this was your idea first.”

“Teaming them up may have been my idea, but you made them partners,” she says.

“Well we make a good team.” He thinks he’s just saying what he’s supposed to say, but it’s true. They do make a good team. The hooded look she’s giving him now says she knows it too.

“Tell you what,” she says. “If you’re home a week or two and you still don’t know what’s next, give me a call. We’ll get a drink and have a talk.”

“Oh,” David says, surprised. “Um . . . sure.”

“I’m gonna go see if my wife is still up for dinner. Tell Patrick I’ll give him a call tomorrow,” she says with a backwards wave on her way to the security checkpoint.

“Will do.”

Alexis comes out of the changing rooms first, still beaming from their skate. The team event won’t be decided until Thursday, but everyone is feeling good. Ken has been unstoppable as per fucking usual—he won Canada’s only gold in figure skating so far—so Stevie should have a little buffer when she finishes the team event with her free skate.

“You did it,” he says.

“I just hate that it’s out of my control now.”

“It’s in good hands,” he says. “Two days from now, you’ll be standing on the podium and singing ‘O Canada’ like it’s your favorite song. I’m sure of it.”

She looks away, holding her breath, and for a split second she lets him see how much she wants this. She shakes it off her shoulders and turns back to him, back to herself.

“I assume Patrick is going back with you?” she asks.

“I think so,” he says.

“You think so? You don’t know so?” Alexis does her best imitation of him which makes him smile a little even though it is terribly unflattering.

“If you haven’t noticed, this,” David makes circles with his hands outstretched toward their general surroundings, “is kind of important and _I’ve_ been focused on _you_.” 

“Okay,” she says, but her look of concern worries him. “But you’re like, back together. Right?”

“Yes?” he says, but the way his voice lifts on the word isn’t even convincing to him. “I mean yes. We are. We’ve just been— We’re taking it slow.”

“Mm’okay, David. I’ve heard that before,” Alexis says, rocking up on her toes and kissing his cheek. “Have a fun night.”

Alone again, David tries to keep the seed of anxiety in his gut from germinating. They had skated a few laps the other night before Patrick had to go meet his parents for dinner and David went to spill all the details to Stevie. But Patrick had come to his hotel once his parents went to bed, and as much as David had wanted to jump back right where they left off, he couldn’t do it.

He’s not opposed to angry sex. They’ve done that before. That doesn’t mean he wants to rebuild their relationship on it. So he’d asked if they could take it slow until they found their way through this complicated blend of emotions. They’d talked for an hour or so that night. And again the next day. And the next.

The problem is that between training and interviews and family and friends, they haven’t been able to move forward from that. David is worried they’ll be stuck here, in this raw, vulnerable love that is at once achingly familiar and terrifyingly new, unsure what to do with it.

“Hey, you ready?” Patrick asks, carrying the garment bag of costumes and his duffel bag of clothes and equipment. He’s dressed in street clothes: dark, snug-fitting jeans David picked out with him and a heathered blue sweater. It’s a startling change from the wardrobe Team Canada provided to its athletes for the games, the reds and whites that are supposed to remind them of home replaced with soft blues that feel so much more like it.

“I’m ready.” David hopes he is.

After a little back and forth they decide to drop the costumes and equipment at David’s hotel and grab a quick dinner somewhere nearby.

They exit the venue and walk past toward the plaza where most of the trams and shuttles stop. Every evening, as more and more events are concluded, the energy in the Olympic Village lifts. The stress and focus so many athletes and coaches and trainers have carried around with them since their arrival turns into a buzz of people coming together over laughter, having been united by competition. If he spends too much time here in the glow of the Olympic flame, David might have to revisit some of his firmly-held beliefs about team sports.

As they turn out of the plaza and toward his hotel, David thinks about what it might take to move forward with Patrick. Slowly or not.

“Can I—Here let me help,” David says, reaching for the garment bag with the costumes.

They walk another few steps, Patrick’s hand, newly free of cargo, swinging close to David’s. David longs to touch him like he has every day since they broke up and, well. He can now. He can. His fingers trail down Patrick’s wrist into his palm and press a gentle request. Patrick makes a hard sound deep in his throat as his hand turns and weaves into David’s, muscle memory taking over. And finally, they are moving again.

_It’s a first date, David reminds himself for the millionth time. It’s too soon for comparisons, too soon for quantifying, too soon to be noticing that Patrick’s left dimple changes depending on if his smile is nervous or teasing or—David’s favorite—holding back a laugh. It’s too soon to be thinking about all the ways this feels different as Patrick looks at him from across the table, making deft adjustments to keep up with David’s conversational shifts from subtle jabs to small revelations to searing judgements to soft questions and back again. As they savor David’s favorite miso soup in Toronto, David wonders if Patrick’s open attentiveness will feel as different from David’s past experiences in bed as it does here over dinner. _

_“I’m not ready to go home. Will you walk with me for a bit?” Patrick asks once they step outside after dinner. _

_David just nods, the idea that Patrick wants to extend the night wrapping him in a warmth impervious to the winter chill. _

_David considers reaching for Patrick’s hand as they walk, but they’re stuffed in his coat pockets as usual. It’s probably for the best. This already feels like everything at once._

_“Do you have a favorite place in the city yet?” David asks._

_“I’ve been so busy with Alexis and this new training schedule, I haven’t been able to get out much. I did go up the CN Tower though. It’s sort of a requirement when you move here, right? Call and put the utility bills in your name and visit the CN Tower?”_

_“I’ve never been,” David says._

_“You’ve never been? In the whole time you’ve lived here?” _

_“No.” David says. “But then again I don’t pay much attention to rules.”_

_“Mmm,” Patrick nods. “Well fortunately for you, I live for rules, and it’s only two blocks from here. We can remedy this oversight tonight.”_

_“What? You mean now?” David laughs, from annoyed exasperation or inexplicable attraction he’s not sure. Maybe they’re the same thing._

_“Yes. Now.” Patrick is shorter than he is, but he’s looking at David like he can carry him the two blocks if that’s what it takes._

_“This is all feeling very spontaneous and out of character for you.” _

_“I know. It’s only been one date and look what you’ve done.” Somewhere in the middle of his sentence Patrick’s teasing tone falters, and David gets a flash of Patrick who might be willing to break a lot of rules. _

_“It’s a gift,” David says, because it’s too soon to think about—about that._

_“Hey.” Patrick stops and turns around. “We don’t have to go, but . . . I think you’ll like it. Will you trust me?”_

_A first date feels a little soon to be giving away trust willy-nilly. But it is definitely also too soon to unpack his various phobias, so David makes a tentative reach for Patrick’s shoulders, hoping to steady himself. _

_“I trust you,” David confesses, quiet and close. Patrick tilts his head into a kiss, the flavors of dinner and the warmth of their conversation still there at the tip of his tongue as it teases its way into David’s mouth. David is about to pull him closer, deeper, when Patrick backs away and does the world’s most ridiculous half-wink. Which helps quell the rising heat in David’s abdomen._

_The nighttime viewing crowd is starting to thin out so they don’t have to wait long for the elevator. David stands behind Patrick and closes his eyes as the city drops away through the window in front of them and closes his ears as the elevator operator gives them statistics about how fast they are rocketing into the air and how far above the solid ground they will be when they finally stop. _

_It takes just under a minute to reach the top, where they step out into a circular room with floor-to-ceiling glass. Lake Ontario stretches out in front of them as dark as the night sky. It’s disorienting enough that David almost doesn’t get off the elevator until the woman behind him nudges his kidney with the arch of her cane. _

_David wills his feet to follow Patrick around the glass curve until he stops, looking out towards the yellow hues of the city’s lights. Patrick steps right up to the glass wall, and with a deep breath, David follows. The city moves underneath them, and even though it’s five hundred meters below them, David feels like it’s sweeping the floor out from under him. David reaches for Patrick’s hand out of necessity as much as anything else. The glass is wider and taller than both of them and he doesn’t dare lean against it. But Patrick’s hand is strong and sure, turning to fit their fingers together._

_For a long time, neither of them speak. The only movement between them is the whisper of Patrick’s thumb along the base of David’s as they look out at the gleaming lights. _

_Patrick turns his head to kiss David’s shoulder, murmuring into his sweater. “I don’t know all your faces yet, but this one is telling me I was right about coming up here.”_

_“It’s not as bad as I thought,” David says. David tips his forehead against Patrick’s and closes his eyes to keep them from giving away everything. It’s way too soon to show Patrick everything._

_“There’s still an hour until they close. Since you’re having so much fun, maybe you’d like to go downstairs and stand on the glass floor.”_

_“Absolutely not,” David says. Patrick laughs against his shoulder and brings their intertwined hands to his lips, brushing them across David’s rings. _

_“Maybe on our anniversary,” he says, speaking of too soon. David doesn’t ask him to clarify which one. He doesn’t think he can handle knowing how far into the future Patrick thinks this could go. So he just makes a vaguely affirmative sound and watches the city defy the night._

_In his lifetime, David has wished a lot of nights away. Nights spent in bed immobile and alone, alternating between pain and pills to try to dull the pain. Nights out in clubs pretending to like himself in hopes someone else might like him too and take him home. Nights watching his sister skate her heart out for a dream that neither of them are sure is possible. Nights where he can’t even identify what is wrong, blaming his sadness on the idea of night itself._

_This night is different. The longer they stand here, the safer he feels. David will stay here forever, or at least until someone kicks them out, holding on to Patrick as they gaze into the infinite sea of lights._

Despite the added difficulty of walking down the busy street hand-in-hand, David doesn’t let go until they arrive at the hotel.

When they get up to his room he watches Patrick’s back as he shrugs off the shoulder strap of his duffel, dropping it on to the armchair in the corner. His shoulders sag, free of its weight. He spends another minute facing away, and David wonders if he’s trying to steel himself for another long conversation, pacing the room as they talk, again, about moving past the ways they’ve managed to hurt each other.

David wonders if it would have taken this long to work through it if he had just let Patrick talk to him when it happened instead of shutting down all non-work-related contact. Now that time has inserted itself between the fight and the first attempts at resolution, it’s difficult to work through the layers of pain and mistrust and practiced apathy that have built up between them. But it’s also possible that only time has made David willing to talk about any of this at all.

“Here,” David says, handing him the room service menu card on the dresser. “We can just order something in tonight.”

David takes the costumes out of the bags to air them out while Patrick looks over the menu.

When David turns back from the closet, though, Patrick is there, next to him.

“David,” he starts. He licks his lips with a touch of nervousness as he snags the loop in David’s scarf and pulls him closer. He catches David’s lower lip in a kiss. When he pulls back, he straightens the scarf, his fingers grazing the line of David’s jaw. His eyes catch David’s, searching and hungry. David thinks he knows what he’s going to ask, but he’s wrong. “Can I take you to dinner tonight? Like as a date?”

When Patrick steps closer, his hand pressing flat and slightly left-of-center on David’s chest, David is sure Patrick can hear the answer in his thudding heart. Just in case it isn’t as loud and clear as it seems, David says, “Yes.”

\-----

Halfway through his hibachi steak, Patrick catches David’s eye across the table and smiles through his eyelashes. The conversation has been fairly light so far. Not shallow necessarily but easy.

“Tell me something you’d rather box up.” Patrick’s voice is low, calculated to soothe. He takes a sip of miso soup while David considers.

“Right now?”

Patrick shrugs and darts his eyes back at David’s. “Yesterday we decided we were going to unpack our boxes.”

“Um, it’s just I have like a whole storage unit of boxes?” David says, chasing a piece of meat through the sauce on his plate with a chopstick. “I don’t know where to start.”

“When we were apart, I looked up your accident. I saw the stories. Pictures.” David can tell Patrick is watching for his reaction. When he looks up from his plate again, Patrick’s eyes are wide and cautious. David has never really talked to Patrick about the injury beyond the basic facts. It’s one of the many things Patrick learned not to ask about.

Realizing he has the same default as Patrick—withholding details when he convinces himself they aren’t relevant to the present moment—has been one of the more difficult truths of the last few days. Patrick hides the harder parts of his past in self-protective redirection, David in self-deprecating recounting. But the result, the distance that creates between them, is the same. And Patrick is right. They’re trying to close that distance now.

“What do you want to know about it?”

“Start with one thing. One thing you’ve never told me.”

“It aches sometimes. My leg. Especially when it’s cold. It prickles up and down my shin where the rod is. And when it does, I’m right back there, laying on the ice. I remember being confused, looking up at the ceiling and thinking one leg felt different than it had two minutes before, not understanding where I was or what had happened.”

“It didn’t hurt?”

“I’m sure it did. But other than that, I don’t have any clear memories after I realized I was crooked in the air. The next thing I remember clearly is a day later, waking up in the hospital after the surgery. It’s one of the ways your brain protects you from a severe injury, apparently, making you forget the actual event. It’s never felt like protection to me.”

“What does it feel like to you?” Patrick reaches and takes David’s free hand, rubbing slow circles into his palm with his thumb.

“Like whoever I was before the injury died that day. Like my ability to make plans and choose dreams died too. Lost to the blackness between the points I remember.” It comes out more bitter than he intends it.

“David,” Patrick whispers.

“This is why I don’t talk about it,” David says. “It’s not— I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.”

“I know,” Patrick says. “But thank you. For letting me.”

It’s an odd thing to say, and yet it sends a surge of warmth through David.

“Did you and Alexis ever think about pairing up?” Patrick gifts him with a lighter subject.

“Oh god, can you imagine?” David asks.

“Ha, yeah. I guess I can.”

They each take another bite of food. When he finishes chewing, Patrick leans back in his chair and huffs out an audible sigh.

“I’m not interested in Ken.”

David is startled by another sudden shift in topic and especially by the way Patrick somehow divined the question David has been terrified to ask. David feels the relief bloom into a smile on his face, a smile he tries to straighten into indifference. “It’s none of my business.”

“He kissed me. Last week.”

“When last week?” David asks before he can stop himself. Maybe it is his business.

“Before—before we talked.”

“And what? You decided you didn’t like being the older, taller one in the relationship?” David asks.

Patrick presses his grin together and looks at David, his eyes shining with that harsh, bright love again that takes the edge off the shadow of jealousy.

“We’re telling each other things now, right? So this is me telling you Ken kissed me.”

“Oh,” David says. He considers changing the topic again, but they also promised they would give each other space to react. “I’m so— God Patrick. Do I want to hear about it?”

“It was nice,” Patrick shrugs. “But really the only thing that came of it was that I knew I wanted to kiss you again.” It sounds like a line, except Patrick’s eyes have stalled on David’s lips. And well, David wants to kiss him again too, to be kissing him. So he signals for the check.

\-----

The elevator ride up to David’s room seems to take longer than it did earlier in the night, which is fine because Patrick’s mouth is pressing lazy kisses against his. They are taking things slow. This is what David reminds himself as he tastes the skin of Patrick’s jaw where it drops into the line of his neck. They need time, they agreed, to talk through everything. But David has started to realize that Patrick will probably never be able to explain his choice at Nationals in a way that feels satisfactory. So they also need spontaneous dinner dates and lazy kisses in elevators. Talking not just about the final, brutal break, but the tiny stress fractures before it that have made healing so difficult. And talking about other things too. Failures and dreams, pasts and futures. Hopefully futures.

Maybe it’s time to try to reconnect in other ways too.

With the hotel room door closed behind them, Patrick wraps his arms around David from behind, mouth pressing into the indentation below his ear lobe.

“David, can I just—Can I look at you?” he asks.

David hears his own intake of breath and feels his throat close, holding his lungs stretched full, heart pounding against them.

“I’m—yeah. Sure.”

Patrick seems a little hesitant still, but he slips open the buttons of his own coat and reaches for a hanger, handing a second hanger to David.

Patrick watches David remove his coat and take his time fitting the pads of the shoulders around the smooth wood before he hooks it back over the rod in the closet. David’s stalling earns him an upside-down smile. David stands in front of him, trying to let his hands hang at his sides. This probably isn’t quite what Patrick meant, but it might be fun to make him work for it a little.

“Can you—Um.” Patrick steps closer, hands settling low on David’s hips and. Well. It’s hard for David to decide on anywhere to put his hands when he wants them everywhere. He noses along Patrick’s cheek until he finds his lips while his hands rub along the gentle scratch of the sweater on his shoulders, a low moan escaping Patrick’s throat the reward for his trouble.

“I thought you just wanted to look,” David says against his mouth, catching Patrick’s lip in his teeth.

“That too,” Patrick says, sliding his hands under David’s sweater and pulling it up with his undershirt, easing them both around David’s head so as not to over-stretch the collar. Patrick takes a step back again, and David lets him look. Patrick’s eyes take him in slowly. David can feel their gaze travel over the cords of his neck, the arc of his shoulders, the curve of his biceps, the hair tapering to a line below his belly button.

It takes hours, maybe, for Patrick’s eyes to work him over. And yet the longer it takes, the easier it is to stand exposed. It’s not unlike standing in the CN Tower with the lights of the city stretched out before them, David thinks. The longer he stands here in Patrick’s glow, the safer he feels.

Patrick reaches for his pants and hesitates on the buttons. David doesn’t understand how it can feel like Patrick is seeing him for the first time when he knows for a fact that they have every inch of each other committed to memory.

“You can,” David says, thumbing the soft planes of Patrick’s face as he kisses him. “You can look or—and touch.”

“Zamboni if you need me to stop?” he asks. The word sweeps so much of the past into this fragile present that they both feel the dissonance of it. “Or just say stop. Or anything David . . . I’ll go slow enough so you can stop me however you need to, okay?”

His voice trembles, his breath rattles, his body shudders into another long kiss as his hands grab at the short hairs on the back of David’s head. David feels safer than he ever has in spite of it. It’s this, clinging to Patrick’s body as it shakes with the sheer effort to give David the speed and the space that he needs, that finally clears the last of David’s anger.

Patrick works his pants partway down and nudges David back so he’s sitting on the bed. As Patrick bends to kiss the top of his head, David nuzzles his into the dip of Patrick’s sternum, taking in the scent of him, of adrenaline and memories and need. Patrick kneels in front of him on the floor, his hand finding a hold on the back of David’s neck and dragging him down for a kiss that is just barely under control.

Patrick sits back on his calves and removes David’s shoes one at a time before he guides his pants the rest of the way over the bend of his knees. Pants removed, Patrick traces down the scar where the surgeons opened David’s leg to insert the rod along his tibia. All these years later, the scar is barely visible. Just a thin, shiny line that starts at his knee and almost disappears into the dark hair on his shin. Patrick bends to place a heavy kiss against the scar, his hand wrapping around David’s shin over the line, his fingers tucking into the crease at the back of David’s knee.

“I’ve been lucky,” Patrick says, “I don’t know what it’s like to try to come back from this kind of injury. I have the freedom to take risks without knowing what this feels like when—when it doesn’t work out. And I did take risks, thinking that what you and I had was entirely separate from them.”

“Maybe it should have been.” David says. Patrick’s hand wraps tighter around David’s leg, over the scar that has been nearly as off-limits as the story that created it. David fights to keep his eyes steady against the feel of Patrick barging into all the new spaces David has opened for him.

“No,” Patrick says with a quick flick of his head. “I want all of you, David Rose. Not parts here and there. I want all of you.”

“That sounds wildly unprofessional,” David breathes. He’s trying to keep it light before he joins Patrick in the realm of the barely controlled. It is a strange state, knowing all the ways each touch and press and hold can take Patrick apart and at the same time wanting to keep it together a little longer, let some of this fragile newness in too.

“We’ve been trying professional for weeks. It’s overrated.” Patrick says as his fingers inch under the edge of David’s briefs, pulling at the elastic where it encircles his legs.

“It is.” David agrees, tipping his hips forward a little and encouraging Patrick’s fingertips to dig in harder as he pulls them both backwards on the bed, his arms tangling with Patrick’s as David pulls his knees up to straddle either side of David’s hips.

It’s frantic at first, but Patrick pulls his tongue back along the roof of David’s mouth until he’s out completely and laying soft kisses against David’s lips.

“Sorry, I promised slow,” he says, his arms flexing as he props himself up. David can feel each heaving inhale as Patrick tries to throttle back. Someone should tell him it’s not fair to make that face at the same time you’re offering to slow down. “What does slow mean tonight?”

David laughs, turning into his forearm and nipping him hard through his sweater. The emotional turmoil of the past several weeks is untangling to free a deep, uncomplicated desire. “Go any fucking speed you want.”

“Is that any fucking speed, or any _fucking _speed?” Patrick asks. “Because as I recall you have specific opinions about _fucking_ speeds.”

“Really?” David asks, but he’s laughing now so it’s too late for his branded indignance.

“It’s an important distinction, David,” Patrick says, although he’s laughing too.

The mood is shifting quickly, and if David doesn’t do something he’s going to lose the chance to fuck that smirk off his face. He pushes Patrick backwards until he’s standing and drags his sweater over his head.

Since Patrick’s belly is still shaking with laughter, David’s hands struggle with his jeans and he has to reach down and help. They finally get them off, discarding them somewhere—David hardly cares—and he decides a little first-hand knowledge of Patrick might be useful here after all. He scrapes a thumb hard against Patrick’s nipple and Patrick’s laughter hitches into a gasp before he finds David’s lips, teeth sharp against them.

Patrick sits back on the bed and paws at David’s underwear, ready to reel him in by the waistband of his briefs if necessary. But David grabs his wrist to stop him because well. Fuck.

“You’re—” David doesn’t finish. It’s not like he hasn’t seen all of this before, touched and tasted and drank in every part of Patrick. He knows the curves of Patrick’s body better than his own, could recall the sensation of being pressed together even after weeks apart. But his memories have protected his heart by dulling all of this down until he only recalls the vague notion of Patrick without remembering the heat of him, the power of him standing close and drawing David closer.

David stocked the nightstand with supplies a few nights ago just in case, and he gets them out now and steps out of his underwear before he lowers himself over Patrick. Patrick groans, his face flushed as he bends up and murmurs against David’s pulse.

“Will you come inside and show me the right fucking speed?”

David snorts and takes his face between his hands. “You are ridiculous and I love you so much. But if you make one more comment about fucking speeds, I’m going to fuck you just a little bit too slow and then pull out and get myself off without you.”

“That sounds kind of hot actually,” Patrick says. “But. Noted.”

By the time David prepares him and presses in, Patrick isn’t capable of making jokes. David knows what he likes, the stretch and the speed and the sequence, the simmering heat building in David at the same time. Patrick wraps his legs around David to push him deeper and comes between them with a cry. When David feels his own release rip through him, he drops his forehead to Patrick’s chest and lets it tear him apart.

They stay like that for a minute, panting hard, David still inside. Finally, Patrick reaches up and combs his fingers through David’s hair, tugging on the strands until David tips his head back to look at him.

Patrick’s face cracks into a wide smile, but for once he doesn’t make the obvious joke. Except his eyes still make the joke and David shakes his head, his chin drilling into Patrick’s ribs as he rolls his eyes. They don’t need to say anything else. It feels good actually, after days of talking, to speak without words.

David kisses him once, again, and pulls out, making his way to the bathroom to dispose of the condom and get washcloths. He comes back with two of them, handing one to Patrick for his ass and using the other to clean the come off their chests, enjoying the feeling of Patrick’s eyes watching him as he wipes down their bodies. 

“Can I tell you something I boxed up?” Patrick asks once they’re clean and settled in, facing each other under the covers.

“Okay,” David says.

“I’ve never forgotten what it was like, the first time we did that,” Patrick says. “You were hairy and scratchy and heavy and so fucking hot and I wanted to do it all again as soon as possible. And every time you pressed into me I couldn’t breathe and I thought I was gonna die but it was fine, because I was gonna die so, so happy.”

“That sounds . . . good, right? Why did you box that up?” David asks.

“After we broke up, I boxed up all the memories of you.” Patrick looks past him at the wall and then back with a heavy swallow. “David, I can’t—I won’t do that again. I won’t make it so I have to do that again. Will you trust me?”

It’s a little soon, probably, to be giving away trust willy-nilly after such a dramatic breach of it. But David wants to. Maybe he even has to if they’re going to move forward. So he leans in and brushes his lips over Patrick’s as he confesses, so Patrick can feel the words as he hears them. “I trust you.”


	7. Rings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s your trivia for this installment: The Olympic Rings were originally designed to symbolize the continents (with North and South America considered one continent) and with the white background represent the colors of every flag in the world (also outdated). Now they more broadly symbolize the coming together of diverse interests.

_THURSDAY_

From their seats about twenty rows up from the ice, David half-watches the figure skater from Team Russia as she executes a spiral sequence, her foot stretched impossibly high into the air. She’s a good skater, consistent and technically perfect. She edged out Stevie for the gold medal in the ladies event. Most of the Team Canada skaters—everyone but Ken in fact—is counting on their cumulative talents to win the gold that eluded them in their original events. Stevie will be the last skater of the night, the deciding performance.

“Nervous?” Patrick asks.

“No. Stevie will be great.”

She will be. David is sure of it. David helped design her entire routine around a medley from _Cabaret, _and he will be able to tell in the first fifteen seconds how the rest of the skate will go.

The Skating Center falls into a hush as Stevie’s name is announced. The opening bars start and Stevie sinks into character and commands the attention of the thousands of spectators as though they really are in a dark Berlin club and not a cold, echoey arena.

“This program is so good, David,” Alexis says.

“Stevie makes it work,” David says, because without Stevie throwing herself into it the way she does, it would fall flat.

Stevie is not the most consistent skater, but when she skates like she is now, he can’t take his eyes off her. He feels the hairs raise on his arms as the final bars of “Maybe This Time” reverberate from the sound system while Stevie completes a complicated combination spin ending with an extended layback that opens into her final pose.

David joins the rest of the arena in wild applause. He even turns to the unsuspecting person behind him and shouts, “That’s my friend!”

Patrick laughs at him and takes his hand again and they sit down, leaned forward in their seats as Stevie makes her way to the Kiss-and-Cry to await her score.

_“Should I remind you that I call it the Don’t-You-Fucking-Dare-Kiss-or-Cry area and therefore I could not possibly have been crying?” Stevie asks, stretching out her legs on the hotel bed and flipping on the TV._

_“I know that,” David says. “So you must have just had a little dirt in your eye or . . . ?”_

_“I think it was glitter from my costume actually.”_

_“They are embroidered crystals, not glitter, and I assure you if you had one in your eye you would know.”_

_“I can go,” she says, managing to glare down her nose at him even though she’s sitting and he’s standing. “I’m a national champion now. I have wannabe friends lined up around the block.”_

_“Stay.” He says it too quickly. She looks from the TV and sits up, crisscrossing her legs in front of her. She just won a National Championship. She qualified for the Olympics. He should be popping champagne and celebrating with her. But three days ago his whole world fell apart, and he’s been trying to just keep all the pieces gathered in his arms until Stevie finished competing. His arms are too tired to hold on any longer, which makes him feel worse. He knows this is her night and still he can’t stop himself from dropping everything at her feet. _

_“I’m not going anywhere,” she says, as though he’s just said all of that out loud. _

_He nods and sinks into the bed, pulling his knees up to his chest._

_“Wanna talk about it?” Stevie asks._

_“No. Can we watch something else though? Fright Night is not really helping.”_

_She hands him the remote and doesn’t protest as he flips from one channel to another, giving each new offering a three-second chance to hook him. When he makes his third cycle through she reaches over and gently takes the remote. _

_“I think—and believe me, no one hates this more than me—that we should talk about it.”_

_“Do you think he still would have done it if I’d told him I loved him?” David asks._

_“Yes. Probably.” She doesn’t hesitate, which makes him turn to look at her. She just shrugs. “Patrick compartmentalizes better than anyone I’ve ever met. I doubt he gave any consideration to your relationship when he chose to do that throw. Skating is a completely separate issue to him.”_

_“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” David asks._

_“If I thought there was something I could say to make you feel better, I would.” Her voice is quiet, her face too._

_“Well maybe you could try a _little_ harder,” David gripes._

_“Okay.” She pulls him close, his head taking up the entire width of her narrow shoulder, her hand small and awkward but soothing on his cheek. “He’s a smug asshole who stomped on your trust and ripped out your heart and you’re too good for him.”_

_“Well fuck,” David says, sniffling back a sob. “That doesn’t work either because now I feel like I should defend him? Which is kind of a problem.”_

_“I know,” she says. “I don’t know this for sure, obviously, but it seems like it would be a lot harder when the good ones fuck up. Then you’re forced to hate what they did instead of hating them, which would be so much simpler.”_

_David attempts to laugh through his tears but he’s too far gone. The sobs are heaving out of him now. She lets him soak the flannel collar of her shirt. _

_“I don’t know how to stop feeling like this,” he chokes out at last._

_“Like what?” she asks. _

_He needs a word, but none of the words he knows from previous breakups are quite right. He’s not just hurt or ashamed or sorry for himself. He’s only felt this way once before, this sense that no matter how much metal it takes to put him back together he’ll never be the same. And suddenly the word is clear, drilled into his bones._

_“Shattered.”_

In the week since Patrick found David on the ice, David is realizing that they don’t have to try to put their relationship back into what it was. They can build it even stronger if they take the time to reinforce it. And they can use the scars to help remind them what they almost lost, what they’re fighting to keep.

David is also learning it is easier to let go of anger when he has something else to hold on to. So he reaches for Patrick’s hand. The skin between Patrick’s fingers is soft and snug as it squeezes around David’s rings. The warm metal digs into his fingers until it’s just tender enough to feel real. Patrick brings David’s hand to his lips and kisses it, catching David’s eye with a fond glint that turns quickly into something well past fond. It’s love of course—David knows that now—but this is different than it was before, when Patrick had to hold some of it back. No longer shaded from the full glare of it, David just closes his eyes and soaks in the warmth.

Once Stevie’s scores are posted, the excited high-fives and hugging begin. As the only coach in attendance, David mostly lets them congratulate each other, standing in the aisle and watching Stevie on the jumbotron crying and hugging her coach and even going so far as to blow a kiss toward the screen before an enthusiastic wave. He can’t believe how full his heart is, thinking his friend and his sister and his—Patrick will be able to take home a gold medal after all.

Patrick finds David in the midst of the celebration, pressing his lips into whatever part of David’s face is closest until he finds his mouth.

The medal ceremony for the Team Skate takes place right away on the ice. A group of event staff sets up a carpeted area with three large platforms while the teams assemble in the staging area, congratulating each other.

Suitably uplifting instrumental music starts and the announcer speaks over it, calling out the names of the bronze medalists from the United States and the silver medalists from China, each team member skating to form a line on the ice, waving at the crowd before they step onto the podium together hand in hand. David watches as Stevie and Patrick and Alexis are called out with the rest of Team Canada, each of their faces bursting with an irrepressible smile.

The medals ceremonies are a progression of elongated pageantry—rehearsed standing and walking and waving and bowing—each step announced in a triad of languages. But finally there is gold hanging from their necks as “O Canada” plays. David watches as the anthem turns their wide smiles into blinking eyes and quivering mouths when reality hits them. David can’t contain his laughter—or god, maybe he’s crying. Whatever it is, it’s pouring out of him. He might be living his Olympic dream by proxy, but he’s still living it. And now that they’ve done it, he feels free.

\-----

David folds up his legs on his bed and rests his notebook on his knees as he writes. He left Patrick in the Olympic Village about an hour before, refusing to be the only coach crashing the team’s celebratory drinks. Patrick had insisted that significant others were invited, but David told him to go and have fun. He wanted a shower and to try to record this day in his journal before he loses the feel of it to sheer exhaustion.

The knock at the door surprises him, the sight of Patrick through the peep hole doubly so.

“Hey, I thought you were going out for drinks,” David says when he opens the door.

“I did. I had a drink.”

“You won a gold medal. You were supposed to go get drunk and celebrate.”

“Why do you think I’m here?”

Patrick hands David a bottle of champagne and kisses him, teasing his tongue between their open mouths before walking the rest of the way into the room.

“Can I borrow some joggers? I feel like you should be singing ‘O Canada’ to me when I’m wearing this,” Patrick says, gesturing to his Team Canada warm-ups. He’s in a red, white, and black color-blocked outfit with a big white maple leaf emblem wrapping around one side and under the arm of the puffer jacket.

“First, I am comfortable leaving all the singing to you, no matter how you are dressed. Second, do I seem like someone who has joggers?” David asks.

Patrick snorts and unzips the puffer jacket. “You know what I mean. Something comfortable and a little less patriotic.”

“Mmm, I’ll check,” David says, watching Patrick start to remove his jacket and shoes with a sideways glance as he digs through a drawer.

David finds a pair of loose knit pants. They might be a little long for him but they have cuffs at the bottom to keep them from dragging.

“Thanks,” Patrick says, taking them. David watches Patrick’s thighs flexing as he lifts them up to step out of his red pants. Patrick glances up and catches him watching.

“I was thinking champagne first since it’s chilled but we can put it on ice if you want to do something else.” His eyebrows raise, seeing what kind of reaction he can provoke

“Champagne first is good,” David says. His mouth is a little dry. That will help. Or it won’t hurt anyway.

“You can open it if you want,” Patrick says as he puts on the black pants. They are a little snug around the curve of his ass but that’s—well it’s going to distract him but otherwise it’s fine. Patrick sheds his Team Canada long-sleeve t-shirt too, so he’s standing there in his white undershirt and David’s pants, and David wants him forever. The thought nearly knocks him over, even more so when he realizes it’s not a new thought at all. It’s one he first had looking out at Toronto thought a plate of glass, way up in the air. 

They don’t get to finish the champagne before both pairs of David’s pants are on the floor.

After, Patrick gathers him close and kisses into the soft hollow of his neck and whispers, “I love you.” And David thinks again about forever and wonders how long it will take him this time, to be able to say it out loud.

“I would have come with you if I knew you would leave early just to come celebrate with me. You should be celebrating with the team.” David says.

“Hey.” Patrick feathers his mouth over the curve of David’s neck. “You’re my team now. And this celebration was perfect.”

It was, David thinks, so he squeezes Patrick’s arms curled around him and rubs his cheek against his wiry stubble.

“Have you decided what you’re going to do next?” David asks.

“I’m getting my MBA,” Patrick says.

“You are?”

“Yeah. I forgot I never told you. I started already. I’m taking three credits this semester. I’ll go full time once Alexis and I are retire.”

“Wow,” David says. He’s trying not to stress about what’s next for him, but it really does feel like everyone else has a plan.

“Ken told me he asked you to consult on his programs next year. Artistic Director, he called you.”

“Yeah. I think it’s more of a keep your enemies close thing, though. I did steal you from him.”

Patrick laughs into the back of his neck and takes a little bite for good measure.

“Mmm. I didn’t come without a fight, though.”

It’s the opposite, really, and David turns in his arms so he can tell him so to his face.

“Thank you,” David says.

“For what?”

“For fighting for me.”

“Oh,” Patrick says, and then kisses him. “I’m sorry I messed everything up and turned it into a fight in the first place.”

“I know. Me too.” They’ve talked ad nauseum about the ways they share the blame; David doesn’t need to go into it again.

“So are you going to do it? The thing with Ken? Alexis said you’ve gotten a few offers like that.”

“I don’t know,” David says. “I don’t know what that would even look like. How to make a plan for something like that.”

“I’m pretty good at plans, if you’ll recall,” Patrick says. He waits for David’s face to turn soft before ruining the moment breaking into a throaty singing voice.

_“Dream lover come rescue me_

_Take me up take me down_

_Take me anywhere you want to baby now._”

“No. Nope. No, no, no.” David says between kisses, chasing his mouth. Patrick lets himself be caught finally, although he's laughing too much to kiss properly.

“Hey,” he says, turning serious again. “Whatever you decide your dream is, David . . . Can I be part of it?”

“I hope so,” David breathes. “But—what if it takes me forever to figure it out?”

Patrick shrugs, which turns into an endearing wriggle since he’s lying sideways on the bed.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

** _EPILOGUE_ **

Standing in the stadium, David is flooded with the memories of his first Olympic games four years earlier. The lights dim and the Opening Ceremony begins with a piece of theater that takes the attendees through a winter story of loss and heartbreak transformed into healing and redemption.

Rose Figure Skating Club has three athletes at the games, a big feat for a relatively new company. The five partners have developed a new business model, a one-stop shop for elite skaters. Despite their sometimes divergent interests, it’s working. Alexis manages the marketing and sponsorships. Ronnie does most of the coaching and training. David makes the creative decisions, helping skaters develop programs and work on their artistry. Stevie handles most of their travel and accommodations logistics and a little bit of whatever else needs to be done. And Patrick takes care of the money and the taxes and all the other business stuff, a list of duties that make him so blissfully happy David doesn’t need to understand why.

The Parade of Nations is long and as the host country, Canada will be last. When the team from Canada is finally announced, they try to catch a glimpse of their clients. They spot Ken right away. He paid David as a consultant for three years before leaving his coach and hiring their fledgling company. He took home two gold medals from his first Olympic Games, and he’s better than ever this year. He could easily take home two more if the team event goes well. A little further back in the parade, they spot Connor and Kelsey, their new pairs team. David loves to watch them skate, young and hungry for gold and full of potential. They also listen to him, which is a nice change from the clients he came with last time. Although he's happy to have them here cheering along on either side of him.

As the parade concludes, Alexis nudges past David and reminds Patrick it’s time to take their places.

“Bye,” Patrick says, his left hand cupping David’s cheek as he kisses him.

“Bye. Good luck,” David replies, catching his hand and squeezing before Patrick follows Alexis out. Even though they’ve been married for three years now, it still makes David smile to feel the hard warmth of Patrick’s ring against his cheek.

They had visited the CN Tower about three months after returning home from the Games. Standing on the glass floor, David had finally found the courage to say forever out loud. Patrick had laughed and laughed, which was not exactly the reaction David was expecting to his proposal, until Patrick pulled a long box out of his pocket and David laughed and cried with him. They had floated above the city as they distributed the five rings between them, one on Patrick’s left ring finger and four on David’s left hand, the gold bands catching the lights of the city around them.

The more official parts of the Opening Ceremony begin on a stage at one end of the arena, the Olympic motto stretched across the backdrop. There is a speech—a few of them actually—and the carrying in of the flag. Once it’s raised, it catches the breeze, the five Olympic rings fluttering over the representatives of athletes and coaches and officials as they utter the Oath, which still manages to make David choked up.

With the games officially opened, all that’s left is to light the flame. A camera shows Patrick and Alexis in place outside the stadium, taking the handoff of the torch as it arrives. The pair of them may have come away with fewer golds than they wanted, but they won three World Championships before they retired the year after the Olympics, more than any other Canadian pairs team. David knows they were chosen to carry the torch as much for their continuing role in representing and fostering Olympic athletes as for their record as Olympians themselves. And he’s so proud to be making Olympic dreams happen with them. They emerge from the tunnel to cheers of the gathered crowd and hand off the torch to the next torch bearer, a hockey player that David doesn’t know but who Patrick says is a really big deal.

The torch moves closer to the flame and is handed to the final set of athletes who dip it into an elaborate Rube Goldberg machination that passes the flame up until it fills the entire cauldron at the top.

A lot has changed in four years. The heat of the Olympic flame is the same, flickering into the night. The dream isn’t much different either really—family, love, friendship, peace, a sense of purpose—except this time he’s living it instead of longing for it. And David gets to take all of that home with him when he’s done here, whether his team wins a medal or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.”  
_\- Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the International Olympic Committee and father of the modern Olympic Games_
> 
> Thanks to Pants for lots of patient listening while I whined and just generally being a safe and wise and wonderful person to talk with. Huge thanks to barelypink for the last minute read of this chapter and ongoing help with figure skating technique.


End file.
